After thirty years of clinical work, I’ve heard about a lot of workplaces from the inside. The healthiest ones are not the ones with the best wellbeing app or the most yoga vouchers. They tend to have other things in common. Senior people model emotional honesty. Somewhere near the top, a leader can say in […]
We’ve spent decades telling employees to be more resilient, and burnout rates continue to climb. Maybe the problem isn’t the amount of resilience. Maybe it’s the definition. The working definition in most workplaces is some version of pushing through: absorb more, complain less, keep going. By that definition, the most resilient person is the one […]
Ask a manager who on their team they’re worried about in terms of burnout, and they’ll often name the person who’s visibly struggling: missing deadlines, calling in sick, snapping in meetings. As a psychiatrist, I’d ask about someone else entirely. The one who never complains, never misses a day, always says yes. They may be […]
Have you ever said, “I’m fine” while clearly not being “fine”? There’s solid research on what saying “I’m fine” while feeling otherwise actually does to us. In mental health we call it expressive suppression: hiding the outward expression of an emotion you’re already feeling. Unfortunately, suppression doesn’t change the emotion. It only hides it. The […]
Burnout is not a personal failing. The World Health Organization agrees with me, which is always nice! In the diagnostic manual ICD-11, burnout is classified as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition. The definition is precise: a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. As a psychiatrist, I find […]
Understand anxiety and how to help the people you care about, and receive the occasional message from Dr Jo.