Walter catherine

Part 1

Dear Roger,

I am writing to you to get some news from you. I have learned that you are living a bad period, I know that burnout is not an easy thing to overcome, but everything is possible, because I was suffering of that last year and now I’m great.

In my experience, the key to recovery is to recognize and accept your condition. Currently, we live in a society based on performance, competition, efficiency and swiftness. Today, the work done by a person has increased dramatically. If we go back 50 years ago, there were three persons to do the job of one worker today.

I advise you, to stop working, if it possible, and to consult a psychotherapist (if you need a reference, I can put you in touch with mine). I strongly encourage you to think about you, what activities you enjoy to do, in a word, to find you. The way I have found myself, was to do at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day, changing my diet to a healthier one and I have joined a class of yoga and meditation. You need to reconnect with yourself and life is not just work, eat and sleep.

For me, I had dreams and plans, than I had set when I was younger and I have never realized any of them before my burnout, by lack of time, money or it was not the good moment. I had promotions and a career goal, but when you reach your career goal, you realize you are forty five years old and during the last twenty years, all you have done is worked and you did not enjoy life.

Life is like a movie, you are the producer, director, actor etc. It is up to you what kind of movie you want to watch when you will be dead. You can work, fine, but not over your physical and mental capacities.

If you need someone to talk to, feel free to call me anytime!

Josée

Part 2

Today, we hear increasingly of burnout, but we know that this phenomenon has existed for several years. In the text written by Catherine Walter 1 (Cambridge, 1986), the researcher M. Michael Lauderdale devote the last ten years to understand where this disease and these causes come from. He tries to explain what it is burnout and all human beings may one day be affected by this disease more common in our society.

First, in the text by Catherine Walter, Mr. Lauderdale said that some groups of individuals are more vulnerable than others to contract this disease, but everyone lives at different degrees and nobody is immune. Now we are living in a society where everything is progressing rapidly and people want to follow these changes, but some external factors could have a negative pressure on our physical and mental capacities.

Burnout is divided into three phases, the confusion means when a person feels sorry for one self all the time and during this phase we can develop some physical problems.

Second, it is possible that workers are confined to a cocoon (cocooning effect) during their shift and as soon they are leaving work they found their energy and smile.

Finally, despair is the final phase of burnout, which can be detected by a depression, a drinking problem or drug addiction.

Using research by Mr. Lauderdale, Catherine Walter

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