Therapists’ Experience of Identifying Signs of Burnout in Themselves
Research poster exhibition 2025

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Introduction

As a recently qualified therapist, and after having embarked on a career change, partly due to burnout, I am aware of the impact it can have, and I don’t want to burn out again in this new role. 

Burnout has been described to include; 1)Exhaustion, or the individual stress response, 2)Cynicism, or the negative reaction to others and the job, and 3)Inefficacy, or the negative evaluation of one’s own accomplishments (Maslach 2003, 2015). 

After an initial literature search, I was concerned to find out, that therapists have found it difficult to identify that they are burning out (Ledingham et al., 2019; Finan et al., 2021) 

This prompted me to find out more about ‘how therapists were able to identify they were burning out’, so that I and other therapists, might better know what to be on the lookout for 

In addition, despite having experienced burnout, I did not know much about it, and it wasn’t taught during my therapy training. For this reason, I was curious to explore if the difficulty experienced in identifying signs of burnout could be linked with a lack of prior knowledge of the syndrome.  

Design Methodology

A qualitative study using Grounded Theory, as outlined by Charmaz (2006). Interviews were semi-structured, took place online and were audio recorded. Interviews were then transcribed, coded and analysed by the researcher 

There were 4 participants, 3 female and 1 male, all professional therapists, with between 7 and 21 years of professional experience, and members of a professional body in England (Â鶹ԭ´´, COSRT & NCPS). 

They all had experienced signs of burnout; two for a duration of 2-3 years, one intermittently throughout their career, and one for 1 month, before moving towards recovery.