Burnout syndrome is one of the psychological disorders linked to the job, but its implications go beyond the professional world. In fact, those who suffer from this imbalance tend to behave differently also in their personal relationships and private lives, since the wear and tear they suffer does not disappear when their work day ends.
In the following lines we will enter one of the psychological consequences of burnout syndrome that has a greater capacity to harm personal relationships: irritability.
Burnout syndrome, also known as burnout syndrome or professional burnout syndrome, is a set of psychological symptoms that arise from continued exposure to a work context that emotionally exhausts the worker and is linked to high levels of stress. This concept is described in the International Classification of Diseases, although it is absent in the DSM-5, another of the most used diagnostic manuals in the field of mental health.
On the other hand, research carried out on burnout syndrome reflects that there are certain professions that are more likely to facilitate the appearance of this psychological problem. For example, healthcare workers seem to be especially vulnerable to suffering from this phenomenon, something that is not surprising considering the level of responsibility that a single person can have in this type of work.
In the same way, those jobs in which there is an excess workload in general (taking into account the resources available to the person and the relative lack of possibility of delegating tasks) also tend to generate burnout syndrome. And something similar happens with professions in which there is no clear separation between hours of free time and hours of work performance, something that can be associated with Parkinson’s law: work tends to expand until it covers all the time available for work. perform it.
On the other hand, work remains at high levels of demand without clearly offering the possibility of improving the work situation in the short term, so that the person is subjected to a constant torrent of tasks that is almost never interrupted, nor does it make possible stop to see everything from a distance and in a more global way and make strategic decisions (the worker under pressure tends to focus on urgent obligations because he feels overwhelmed).
Thus, in burnout syndrome there are three fundamental psychological characteristics:
How do burnout syndrome and irritability interact?
In Psychology, irritability is the propensity to respond with hostility to social interactions that one does not initiate oneself, or toward attitudes, reactions, and consequences that go beyond expectations when socializing or interacting with the environment. That is, it is associated with an interest in keeping interactions limited to the minimum necessary to achieve a specific purpose, without having to dedicate more time and effort to it than necessary; Any situation in which this is not fulfilled generates discomfort and a tendency to blame others or objects for this type of “setbacks.”
Thus, irritability is clearly anger and the predisposition to react with explosions of anger in the face of unforeseen situations, some of which in other circumstances would not even be considered a problem.
Although there are people prone to being irritable, irritability also depends on the context, and the fact of having developed burnout syndrome facilitates its appearance. It is believed that the cause of this is that, due to the psychological exhaustion generated by this experience, The person feels that he or she can take on other “fronts” of work that are seen as extra problems.
Due to the physical and/or mental fatigue he suffers, he adopts a mentality from which he tries to compensate for this discomfort by being very sensitive to situations in which he could blame his environment for the setbacks that arise in his path.
What can be done about this problem?
Faced with burnout syndrome, It is important to have professional help in the context of psychotherapy. In this way, it is possible to train stress and anxiety management skills, as well as time management and optimization methods.
Now, in many cases the solution also involves making changes in the professional field, something that can be facilitated by the process of introspection and prioritization of goals that occurs in psychotherapy.
Are you interested in having professional psychological support?
If you want to start a psychotherapy process to overcome a problem related to anxiety, work stress or other psychological disorders linked to the world of work, Get in contact with us.
In our Psychology center we serve people of all ages, and we offer both individual, family and couples psychotherapy. You can find us in Irún, or hire our services online through video calls.
