Deck 14: Avoiding Burnout

Question 1

How would you describe a human service worker who is said by his or her colleagues to be "burnt-out"? How might he or she act? What might he or she be experiencing?

Answer 1

The worker might seem listless, as if the spark in the personality had gone out. He or she might also be experiencing difficulty in sleeping, irritability, upset stomach, headaches and shortness of breath. It has both physical and emotional symptoms.

Question 2

When analyzing the phenomenon of burnout, some theorists look at it from an individual psychological perspective, while others examine it from a sociological perspective. What do those who examine it from an individual psychological perspective emphasize?

Answer 2

They emphasize being alert to the responsive chords that the clients' problems might provoke in the worker's own remembrances of growing up, having similar problems, etc. The worker can thus re-experience some of his or her own pain.

Question 3

"Social workers are caught between the privatization of profits and the socialization of the costs from that profit making." What does this mean?

Answer 3

The human service profession is built on a humanitarian ethos, but everyone in our society does not fully subscribe to it. Communities rarely provide the full resources of money, time, and caring to allow the human service worker to do the kind of job that needs to be done. Workers face not only a lack of resources outside the agency; but also sometimes a lack of support within the agency; the pressure exerted by clients, stigma, discrimination, status ranking; occupational hazards of the work. Workers are continually in conflict about whether to help clients or to make the client more "obedient" in order to fit better into the agency's way of "helping". The recession has made this worse due to cutbacks in human service programs, which has led to even fewer resources.

Question 4

In your own words, give an example of how a worker might over-identify with a client.

Question 5

Name some of the human services that are not reimbursable by insurance companies.

Question 6

How do the requirements of insurance companies and funding agencies affect treatment?

Question 7

What are some techniques used to help a worker avoid the burnout that comes with not putting realistic limits on oneself?

Question 8

Given all the potential frustrations of the field of human services, what are your reasons for choosing this field? 

Question 9

In its advanced stages, burnout can lead to a human service worker no longer caring about, or actually disliking, his or her clients.

Question 10

If a worker cares enough, works hard enough, and is conscientious enough, there is no reason why all of his or her clients shouldn't improve their life conditions.

Question 11

In human service work, it is often very frustrating when clients are feeling or acting better and we do not learn about their positive developments.

Question 12

In the human services there is a sharp distinction between a professional organization and a union.

Question 13

The process of relating so completely to another person's feelings and/or experiences that one cannot separate oneself from the other person is called:

A) empathy.
B) sympathy.
C) over identification.
D) alienation.

Question 14

Some human service agencies respond to a lack of resources by sacrificing their original service goals in order to meet their administrative needs.

Question 15

Workers have found that rotating tasks within an agency is a useful burnout protection.

Question 16

Placing a child in a foster home cannot be reimbursed by an insurance company.

Question 17

A "60-day miracle cure" refers to the fact that some insurance companies will not reimburse for in-patient psychiatric care after 60 days.

Question 18

An effective supervisor gives a lot of autonomy to workers.

Question 19

There is research evidence that shows that helping others improves people's mental health, physical well-being, and longevity.

Question 20

Karl Marx said that when work does not belong to the worker, he does not feel content.

Question 21

Informal networks are essential for survival in a human service job.

Question 22

It is irrelevant for a human service worker to understand the social and political structure of their agency, because their focus needs to be on the people that they are helping.

Question 23

A single-minded pre-occupation with getting ahead in a career to the exclusion of other interests or values is called:

A) Pride in work.
B) Worker autonomy.
C) Careerism.
D) Alientation.

Question 24

It is not acceptable for a human service worker to work with people in groups rather than one-on-one to save time and make a large caseload more manageable.

Question 25

There is evidence that by helping others, people always improve their mental health.

Question 26

Compassion fatigue is uncommon among individuals who work directly with victims of trauma; mostly it impacts first responders such as fire-fighters and police officers.

Question 27

When the structure of a job distances people from their work, from each other, and from themselves, it is called:

A) Pride in work.
B) Worker autonomy.
C) Alienation.
D) Social pathology.