Failure in Health: Burnout as an Intuitive Competence for Setting Health-Conducive Personal Boundaries

Burnout phenomena are often regarded as signs of inadequate stress tolerance and thus a reflection of personal weakness and failure by both the world in general and the affected persons themselves. Taking this view of burnout phenomena leads, in many cases, to a downward spiral of humiliation, deepening self-doubt and further impairment. In contrast, hypnosystemic strategies interpret burnout phenomena as an expression of a conflict in values at both the individual and societal levels and a resultant intensive identity crisis. This interpretation views burnout phenomena as an intuitive competence for developing health-conducive personal boundaries. The accompanying symptoms can be seen as a reflection of inner conflicts between, on the one hand, loyalty and total commitment to the task given to and taken on by an individual and, on the other hand, a longing to receive praise, recognition and a sense of belonging regardless of the levels of performance or success achieved. This conflict eventually leads to the phenomenon of burnout. The conflictual dynamic is also apparent and ultimately grounded in discrepancies at the organisational and societal levels.

This chapter outlines and expands on this approach to burnout phenomena and describes how hypnosystemic strategies can contribute to a transformation of the conflictual inner dynamic into an optimal individual balance and how these strategies can be co-ordinated with health-conducive interactional processes in relevant relationship systems. A case study outlines an example of an idiographic modelling and monitoring approach to provide an understanding of the complex interactions of the system levels involved.