Burnout has become a popular indicator of the distress that individuals can experience at work. In Breaking Point: Job Stress, Occupational Depression, and the Myth of Burnout, the authors, in the context of more than a decade of research, show how the phenomenon hidden behind the label of burnout is, in fact, depressive in nature.
This book unravels the connections between work, depression, and burnout. The authors underline the dangers of mislabeling a depressive condition as burnout, including misdiagnosis, improper treatment, and unaddressed suicidality. Finally, they offer a path forward for individuals and society. By recognizing the depressive roots of burnout, human resources specialists and occupational health professionals can refer employees for appropriate treatment and understand how and why problematic working conditions must be changed.
- Review the history of depression and burnout and their connection to work
- Learn about research that supports occupational depression as a more valuable construct than burnout
- Understand and address the stigma that inhibits affected employees from seeking treatment
- Discover specific, research-grounded actions that occupational health specialists can take to prevent and address depression and burnout in the workplace
Foreword xi
About the Authors xiii
Preface xv
1 Occupational Depression 1
Brief History of Depression 1
"Depression is rage turned inward," Dr. Jennifer Melfi 5
Challenge to Freud's Explanation of Depression 6
Helplessness and Hopelessness 10
Early Linkages of Work to Psychological State 11
The Diagnosis of Depression 15
Another Way to Think About Depression 17
Assessing Depression in the Research Context 19
"The Stress of Life" 19
Stressful Life Events 21
The Demand-Control (DC) Model of Job Stress 27
A New Development: The Demand-Control-Support (DCS) Model of Job Stress 32
Reverse Causality 33
The Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model 45
Workplace Bullying 47
Underestimates 53
Conclusions 55
Postscript 56
References 57
2 Burnout 73
Herbert J. Freudenberger 74
Christina Maslach 76
Correlation Coefficients and Reliability Coefficients 78
The Foundations of Burnout 80 More on Discriminant Validity 87
Antecedents of Burnout 88
The Multiplication of Burnout Scales 89
Problems with Burnout Symptom Items That Are Synonymous 92
Burnout as a Diagnosis 93
Longitudinal Research on Adverse Working Conditions and Burnout 94
Conclusions 103
References 104
3 Burnout-Depression Overlap 111
The Idea of a Syndrome 113
First Look at Burnout-Depression Overlap 113
Burnout and Depression as Distinct Constructs 114
A Line of Research by Bianchi, Schonfeld, and Colleagues 116
Burnout and Depressive Cognition 121
Neurobiology of Burnout and Depression 123
Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms 124
The Occupational Depression Inventory 127
Other Studies That Bear on Burnout-Depression Overlap 131
Meta-analyses 133
Conclusions 137
References 141
4 The Stigma Attached to Burnout 153
Some Background Beliefs 154
What Empirical Research Indicates 155
Burnout Versus Depression 156
Destigmatizing Burnout 159
Conclusions 160
References 161
5 Interventions 165
Models of Interventions 165
Randomized Control Trials and Meta-analyses 168
Tertiary Interventions 173
Primary and Secondary Interventions for Depression, Psychological Distress,
and Burnout 182
A Pertinent Primary Intervention Study 189
Conclusions 191
References 194
Appendix 203
Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI) 203
Inventaire de Dépression Professionnelle (IDP) 205
Index 209
Irvin Sam Schonfeld is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at The City College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Renzo Bianchi is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and an Extraordinary Professor of Psychology at the WorkWell Research Unit at North-West University.
