We return to a topic we considered previously, when we focused on Elijah in 1 Kings 19 as an example. We return to burnout because it remains a major problem, especially among ministers, and is often confused with other conditions such as depression.
So what is burnout? The current International Classification of Diseases defines burnout as occupation-related mental and physical exhaustion associated with negativism about work and reduced work efficiency. What might burnout be confused with? Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a more general exhaustion syndrome in which physical fatigue is more prominent than mental fatigue, whereas in burnout mental fatigue dominates. And since the latter is related to one’s work, treatment is much more focused on making changes in relation to this.
Depression is a mood disorder of which profound and persistent sadness is the dominant feature. Fatigue is usual, but is driven by the mood, and treatment needs to focus on mood, not tiredness. Viral infections commonly lead to periods of prolonged fatigue, and this relationship should be apparent. However, sometimes burnout may be developing at work, but then a viral infection adds extra fatigue and complicates the picture, potentially obscuring the emerging burnout.
The development of burnout is best understood in terms of a stress-vulnerability model. Here the stress is chronic work overload. But how much work is overload? Clearly this varies depending on our constitutional vulnerability. Some people are high-energy individuals with robust constitutions who do prodigious amounts of work over long periods of time. But then there are low-energy individuals, people who tire easily even doing regular work.
