Burning Brightly, or Burning Out? A Mismatch Between Unconscious Needs And Job Demands

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"Burn your dream bright. Pursue it with the best of who you are. But don't confuse hustle with burnout,” wrote Jon Acuff, a famous motivational speaker and writer. Burnout is an insidious, often-overlooked condition that slowly creeps up on high-achievers – and healthcare professionals are notorious for being high-achievers - even as they burn with passion and determination for their work, their purpose, and life.

New research has shown that burnout is caused by a mismatch between a person's unconscious needs and the opportunities and demands at the workplace. This may have ramifications for how we prevent burnout at work.
Burnout kills both health & performance

While it varies from person to person, burnout typically occurs after a prolonged period of chronic stress, resulting in a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion from work. Indications of burnout include a lack of motivation, a feeling of ineffectiveness and a marked reduction in productivity, while health effects include anxiety, hypertension, insomnia, and depression. Evidently, a mismatch in one’s needs and the opportunities available in the workplace would create a situation of chronic mental stress.

Let us imagine a nurse who is introverted and for whom the hands-off approach comes naturally. Yet, the job of a nurse is one in which the trait of extraversion - understood as the tendency to be friendly even to strangers, leading a life that is fast in pace, having the ability to converse at ease with strangers, and able to thrive in environments that are noisy – would serve him or her well, since the work of nurses often involves being in a fast paced and noisy environment, being approachable, and providing comfort to people previously unknown to them. Therefore, this nurse’s personality is a mismatch in the employee’s individual needs and the opportunities and demands available in the job.

As for doctors, most departments in hospitals require doctors to work for 36 to 40 hours straight every fourth day or so. To cope with this taxing schedule requires great presence of mind and good physical health. Otherwise one may ignore the need for rest, not noticing the toll such long working hours have taken on the body and mind, as burnout creeps insidiously into the psyche. Such a discrepancy between what is needed by the individual and what is needed in the job creates high risk of burnout, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
The need for power or belonging must be matched by the job scope

The study, conducted by researchers from the Universities of Zurich and Leipzig, involved 97 women and men between the ages of 22 and 62, and focused on two important motives: the power motive and the affiliation motive. The former involves the need to be responsible for others, to preserve order, and negotiate or argue, in order to feel strong and adequate; the latter comprises the need for positive personal relations, so as to feel trust, affection, and belonging.

"We found that the frustration of unconscious affective needs, caused by a lack of opportunities for motive-driven behavior, is detrimental to psychological and physical well-being. The same is true for goal-striving that doesn't match a well-developed implicit motive for power or affiliation, because then excessive effort is necessary to achieve that goal. Both forms of mismatch act as 'hidden stressors' and can cause burnout," says the leading author, Veronika Brandstätter, professor of psychology at the University of Zurich.

In fact, the risk of burnout increased with the mismatch between an individual’s affiliation motive and the scope for personal relations in the occupation. Those experiencing mismatch between their personal power motive and the scope for power in the job were more likely to report the presence of adverse physical symptoms, such as headache and chest pain.

To assess the strength of implicit motives - which cannot be self-reported – a novel method was used; participants were shown pictures and asked to write imaginative short stories, which were then analysed for sentences about positive personal relations between persons (an expression of the affiliation motive) or about persons having impact or influence on others (the power motive). The frequency of such instances would indicate the strength of the implicit motives.
Know what you need, and add it to the job scope

The implication is that interventions that avert or correct such mismatches could reduce the risk of burnout and possibly enhance one’s welfare at work. Although the structural factors that cause burnout, such as long working hours and high workload may not be changed directly - short of a radical overhaul of the medical industry - individuals working in healthcare can take steps to manage their welfare. One strategy for those in the healthcare profession could be to proactively attempt to enrich their job to meet their individual need to fulfill the implicit motives.

Those with strong personal power motives could track their progress, keeping a list of fulfilled and as-yet uncompleted professional goals. Whether they involve procedures that one wishes to do or conferences that one wants to be involved in, taking charge of one’s professional aims and actively working towards them can be a way to stay motivated and fulfill the need for control in one’s professional life.

On the other hand, people with strong affiliation motives could practise mindfulness, and remember that the people one encounters at work are also trying to do the best they can. They may also try to handle their interactions with patients and with other healthcare professionals in a more collaborative way.

Naturally, mindfulness is important for the management of job-related stress, and for burnout to be caught early. Remind yourself of the purpose of your work, of the satisfaction when a patient makes a full recovery and is able to return to their normal lives. Remember why you love your work.

In the words of Steve Jobs, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

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