Burnout: A short socio-cultural history

Abstract

The work and organisational psychologist Wilmar Schaufeli explores the historical roots of burnout as well as the specific socio-cultural factors that led to its emergence. Addressing the question of whether the major symptoms of burnout are ubiquitous or context specific, he analyses how they relate to similar syndromes, such as neurasthenia and depression. Have burnout-like phenomena been observed in the past as well, and is it a typically Western phenomenon? Schaufeli’s chapter concludes with a discussion of differences in the ways the diagnosis is used and understood in North America and Europe.