Framing the Problem: Part I - Who says it's a problem?

Clinical burnout amongst mental health professionals (MHP) is considered a problem by the World Health Organization (WHO) (Via, 2021)  as well as within the United States as described by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) more recently because of COVID19 (Joshi & Sharma, 2020).  Burnout is a byproduct of emotion contagion, perceived stress, compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, more extended periods of therapy, and demands of the job (Joshi & Sharma, 2020; Ray et al., 2013; Y. Yang & Hayes, 2020). The trend with burnout amongst mental health professionals is seen more commonly amongst newer MHPs rather than more experienced ones (Volpe et al., 2014). There are many reasons for burnout. Some researchers identified that a mindfulness practice reduces the likelihood of burnout (Walach et al., 2007; Yang et al., 2017). Other researchers documented their observations on the impact that an agency has on the MHPs as potential mitigating factors (Jambrak et al., 2014). Training was also viewed as mitigating factor (Moreira & de Lucca, 2020) and the problem of burnout ranged from those working in regular outpatient settings to institutions as large as the Veterans Administration in the United States (Kok et al., 2016). This blog will attempt to frame the issue of clinical burnout and the importance of mitigating the effects of different elements that lead to burnout in under multiple lenses to inform the reader on what they can do at their level to mitigate the occurrence.