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Burnt out. People say it about a hard week, a bad month, a job they dislike, and about something much more serious.
It does have a definition.
The World Health Organization, in the international handbook of diagnoses that health systems everywhere use.
In 2019 they set out exactly what it is.
Burnout is not simply exhaustion. The definition has three components, and all three are meant to be present.
Feeling drained. Energy gone and not coming back with a weekend.
That is one third of it, and it is the only third most people can name.
Growing mental distance from your job. Cynicism about it, or a kind of numbness towards work you used to care about.
Not dislike. Distance.
A drop in how effective you feel at the work. Things that were straightforward feel beyond you, and finishing anything seems to take twice as long.
Which of these belong to the definition?
Tap an item, then a bucket
When the WHO defined burnout in 2019, what did they classify it as?
Much of the coverage in 2019 reported that burnout had become a recognised medical diagnosis. The WHO issued a clarification.
The distinction was not a technicality.
It is defined as arising from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
The cause is named, and it is in the workplace.
If burnout is an illness, the burnt-out person needs fixing. If it is an occupational phenomenon, the conditions producing it are the thing to look at.
That is why the classification was argued about.
The definition applies to the occupational context and the WHO says it should not describe experiences in other areas of life.
Burnt out on parenting, or on a relationship, is a different thing borrowing the word.
They overlap and can occur together, and only a clinician can tell them apart in a particular person.
Burnout is tied to a job. Depression is not.
Because vague exhaustion has no obvious response, while three named components in a named setting do.
It tells you where to look.
Three parts, all present, all about work: drained, distant, and less effective. Caused by chronic workplace stress. Defined as an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical condition.