Helper Burnout in Today’s Healthcare System
Helper burnout is a very common problem in all healthcare services and at all levels of 
professional training and experience. Helpers from recovery-oriented peer counselors, state employed case managers, and licensed counselors/therapists all the way to physicians are reporting record high levels of reactive stress and compassion fatigue. Psychiatrists are worried about the possible death of their profession. Perhaps no group of helpers has more stress challenges than typical under-funded and under-staffed non-profit behavioral health care services. These are the same services that experience being swallowed up by the organic bureaucracy of state and federal busy-work as well insurance company “to-do lists.” For many, computerized systems and the electronic health record have only made matters worse. There is no end in sight; in fact pay for performance which is a good thing now simply adds one more layer of stress-inducing work pressure for helpers.
The Mayo Clinic, Wisconsin, just completed a major research study on helper stress. Although this research emphasized medical care services, it’s findings are clearly relevant to other helpers, especially their poor-funded cousins in behavioral health systems. The research 
combined findings from 52 high quality studies; the final analysis was that between 30-40% of professionals experience burnout. This reality had devastating effects on the healthcare system as a whole, and all people involved in it. Here are the negative outcomes on individuals and systems:
- Poor client/patient care;
- Reduced professionalism;
- Ineffective self-care;
- Increased safety risks to all parties -healthcare errors, etc.;
- More depression, anxiety, and self-medication mainly by substance use by helpers;
- More emotional exhaustion;
- Greater supervisory insensitivity – caught between the financial versus human needs of the systems;
- More employee dissatisfaction and turnover; and,
- More depersonalization – client/patients dealt with as if robots.
The key recommendations to improve this disaster were: changes in personal work habits; less workaholism; reduction of specific workplace stressors; and, changes in bottom-line realities behind the organizational stress-machine. Because so much of the stress and emotional dysregulation is caused by the workplace and not the client/patient population, it is going to be difficult to change the system. Out is all about money!
For more information refer to Yellowlees, P. M. (August 1, 2017). Interventions to Prevent and Reduce…Burnout. www.Medscape.com/viewarticle/883134…
Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC
From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont
Author of Mindful Happiness
protective sutra; by following these principles and practices, one lives by wholesome values, virtue, gentleness, inner peace, humility, conscious self-control, and kindness. Thus not only the person practicing but all who encounter that person live within a deeper protective and tranquil experience. Below I will note certain statements noted by The Buddha. As you practice this form of LKM, ask yourself if you are living the true path of his message.
more impulsively to escape from the painful feeling tone or to quickly improve it. We tell ourselves stories about “how bad it is” as we immediately work to reduce the psychic suffering. This is where so many common human problems are born; this is where we may begin habitual behaviors around eating, consuming, angering, isolating, acting out, acting in, using mind-altering substances, and greediness, etc. There are ways to reduce this kind of mindbody stuckness and misery.
increase personal freedom with the skill of pausing between stimulus and reaction. Become more liberated by practicing your PAUSE, then label in a neutral manner – just wait it out. No need to avoid or to self-medicate the unpleasant feeling. This is our best HOPE to master choiceless awareness, especially when it leads to unpleasant feeling tones. Simply pause and label: “I am feeling unpleasantness in my body.” This too will pass. Try NOT to be more specific, since doing so may lead to stories and avoidance behaviors (negative reinforcement). Negative reinforcement by way of quick relief from suffering WILL cause unhealthy habits to form. The more you avoid or self-medicate painful feelings, the stronger the habit will become. This is a path to powerlessness NOT liberation. Just pause and label “I am feeling unpleasantness.” WAIT! Get stronger is your tolerance. Become a more satisfied and happier person. Just keep labeling without actions.
Intimate relationships are often the source of many years of happiness and satisfaction, and sometimes the cause of great pain and suffering. It depends! I will list various realities of initiating and maintaining a positive intimate relationship. After reading these, ask yourself: Where is my relationship? If you are unhappy, do something about it. Stay safe in the process.
anger, intimate partners need to retreat to their executive, cognitive, prefrontal brain power. Taking a break from complicated conversations may be helpful.
