Opinion: Burnout May Be the Biggest Enemy of Counseling Psychology Training Programs

Burnout as a concept has taken center stage on campuses as we continue to adjust to re-entry to in-person academics and training. Burnout is traditionally defined as

  • Physical, cognitive, and/or emotional exhaustion
  • Cynicism or depersonalization of others
  • A decrease in self-efficacy

Although burnout in graduate school has been a common, if not universal, experience, recent sociopolitical events (the war in Ukraine, COVID-19, ongoing racial violence) seem to have accelerated the development of burnout in our students and has magnified burnout symptoms.

All three burnout components have dire implications for effective training, but cynicism should worry counseling professionals the most. Cynicism, or doubt, suspicion, and mistrust, erodes empathy. This provokes two questions our field needs to address:

  1. How can we effectively train the next generation of counseling psychologists in a landscape that threatens empathy, one of psychotherapy’s primary means of promoting change?
  2. How is burnout in training affecting trainees’ (and our) ability to see others as cultural beings?

One of the pillars of Counseling Psychology is our focus on social justice and multiculturalism. I study multicultural orientation (MCO), which describes a therapist’s way of being and ability to recognize and function in culturally complex situations (e.g., therapy). MCO includes three pillars:

  • Cultural humility – [being other-oriented, unassuming and open to others’ experiences and feedback]. Cultural humility requires a therapist to see themselves accurately, to have high interpersonal awareness, to take feedback non-defensively, and to have an open stance toward diverse others. This requires accurate self-efficacy and a sense of trust in order to take critical feedback.
  • Cultural comfort – [engaging in conversations about diversity with ease]. Cultural comfort requires the ability to self-regulate in difficult situations, such as cultural conversations. Exhaustion, low self-efficacy, and suspicion undoubtedly affect cultural comfort.
  • Cultural opportunities – [to identify when cultural topics can be broached or deepened in session and engage in or initiate these conversations]. Engaging in cultural opportunities requires a high level of awareness of interpersonal and cultural processes in a room, as well as the self-efficacy to actually engage in the conversation.

The question becomes, how do those of us who serve as training directors, professors, supervisors, and clinicians work to prevent and mitigate burnout in our students?

In a Career Counseling class during the spring 2022 semester, Stephanie (author) asked her students (including Qing, author) to list ways in which burnout could be reduced in psychology graduate students. Our students/peers identified the following:

  • Increase awareness of personal coping strategies and stress management:
    • De-stigmatize self-care practices and related activities.
    • Time off should be seen as a sustainable way of balancing work and study.
    • Challenge the perception that self-care and time off are undisciplined.
  • Mental health support, most critically, access:
    • Normalize mental health conversations and recognize the link between mental health concerns and burnout.
    • Consider incorporating mental health resources as part of training (see self-care resources here).
  • Financial support, access to scholarships
  • Challenge academic culture that work is the only acceptable activity:
    • Advisers should model healthy and flexible workloads, and the perception that productivity is related to self-worth should be challenged.

The literature supports the recommendations my students offered. both our students/peers and the literature conclude is that burnout is a multi-level issue, with individual, departmental, and cultural (i.e., academic culture) variables at play.

We would encourage all counseling psychologists to mindfully evaluate how they can counteract burnout in their work and training environments. What we model to our students and colleagues matter.

We also recommend that those with decision-making power over supervision and graduate training programs work with their students and colleagues to examine their policies and workplace/education culture to see where burnout is allowed to thrive, so that it can be uprooted. Not only will these actions assist with burnout and related mental health issues, it is likely the best way to cultivate cultural humility within the future of our profession.

Resources

Listen to APA’s Speaking of Psychology podcast’s episode on Burnout with Christina Maslach.

Review APA’s Handbook on Mentoring

Tips for Mentors

 Stephanie Winkeljohn Black (she/her) is deeply committed to helping members of the academic community create work-life integration that aligns with their cultural and spiritual values. She is an assistant professor of psychology at Penn State Harrisburg and focuses on how to (1) bridge the gap between how psychotherapists and other health professionals perceive and engage their clients’ cultural identities, particularly their clients’ religious/spiritual beliefs, and the type of understanding and care that their clients need and (2) identify effective pedagogy to teach multicultural concepts to students in higher education.

Qing Ma (she/her) is a graduate student pursuing her master’s degree in Applied Clinical Psychology at Penn State Harrisburg. Her research interests include trauma, applying interventions in multicultural populations, and mental health disparities among marginalized and minoritized communities.

Resources

Allen, H. K., Barrall, A. L., Vincent, K. B., & Arria, A. M. (2021). Stress and burnout among graduate students: Moderation by sleep duration and quality. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 28(1), 21-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-020-09867-8

Bekkouche, N. S., Schmid, R. F., & Carliner, S. (2021). “Simmering pressure:” How systemic stress impacts graduate student mental health. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 34(4), 547-572. https://doi-org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1002/piq.21365

Charles, S. T., Karnaze M. M., & Leslie, F. M. (2021). Positive factors related to graduate student mental health. Journal of American College Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1841207

Nagy, G. A., Fang, C. M., Hish, A. J., Kelly, L., Nicchitta, C. V., Dzirasa, K., et al. (2019). Burnout and mental health problems in biomedical doctoral students. CBE – Life Sciences Education, 18(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.18-09-0198

Owen, J. (2013). Early career perspectives on psychotherapy research and practice: Psychotherapist effects, multicultural orientation, and couple interventions. Psychotherapy, 50(4), 496–502. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034617

Schaufeli, W. B., Van Dierendonck, D., & Van Gorp, K. (1996). Burnout and reciprocity: Toward a dual-level social exchange model. Work & Stress, 10(3), 225-237. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678379608256802

Stillwell, S. B., Vermeesch, A. L., & Scott, J. G. (2017). Interventions to reduce perceived stress among graduate students: A systematic review with implications for evidenced-based practice. Worldviews on Evidenced-Based Nursing, 14(6), 507-513. https://doi-org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1111/wvn.12250

Warlick, C. A., Van Gorp, A., Farmer, N. M., Patterson, T., & Armstrong, A. (2021). Comparing burnout between graduate-level and professional clinicians. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 15(2), 150-158. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000328