2021/07/14 by Arno van Dam · 1 citation
Medicine · Health Professions · Psychology · #Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation #Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout #Psychological Treatments and Assessments
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/1359432x.2021.1948400
openalex publication_date 2021/07/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
In clinical psychology, burnout is regarded as a mental disorder assessed in patients who apply for psychological treatment and no longer work because of their symptoms or experience of serious problems in functioning at work. This definition of burnout is mostly referred to as ‘clinical burnout’. The purpose of this article is to provide insight into how clinicians in The Netherlands establish a diagnosis of clinical burnout and how they fit it in their classification systems. An outline is given on how psychological interventions for burnout are applied in therapies. The different phases in the treatment of clinical burnout – crisis, recovery, prevention, and post burnout growth, as well as their accompanying interventions are described. It may be relevant for work and organizational psychologists to realize that biological processes may play a role in the development of clinical burnout. For the physiology of stress, it does not matter whether the stress is work-related or the result of stress in private life or both. Central to understanding clinical burnout is the lack of recovery of the (physiological) stress system. It is also argued that the relevance of questionnaires, for detecting who is at serious health risk, is limited.