In the course of life, we all have obstacles to overcome. When we exhaust our individual capacity to tackle the challenges before us, however, we may develop burnout. There is no universally agreed-upon definition of burnout. One reasonable definition is, “Overall, burnout syndrome is an individual response to chronic work stress that develops progressively and can eventually become chronic, causing health alterations” (Ref. 1, p 2). The prevalence of burnout varies, but one meta-analysis found that, among high-quality studies, 72 percent showed moderate or high burn out among general practitioners.2 There is predicted to be a severe physician shortage by 2030,3 which could be worsened by increased physician burnout resulting in more physicians reducing their working hours or even retiring early. One study in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2019 estimated the cost of physician burnout to be $4.6 billion as a result of physician turnover and decreased clinical hours.4 Burnout also has been shown to affect quality of care. One way to decrease burnout is to increase resilience, the ability to overcome life’s difficulties. This is the focus of Dr. Wicks’ book, which discusses in great detail the topics of burnout and resilience.
The book has six chapters, each of which describes a different consideration for avoiding burnout: handling acute and chronic stress; developing a psychological self-care protocol; the beneficial power of friendship and the need for different types of friendship, along with the value of positive psychology and compassion; themes from posttraumatic growth; working toward self-knowledge; and solitude, silence and mindfulness. Dr. Wicks has long worked and published in this area and provides a comprehensive view of the field along with appropriate citations for further reading. There are many tables that are clinically useful. It is an excellent manual and reference for clinicians dealing with burnout patients.
As a psychiatrist, I found many of the areas were familiar to me, but it was still a useful review with some additional new material included. The book provides new information in familiar clinical areas, as well as useful exposure to less familiar ones. For example, I particularly enjoyed the section on posttraumatic growth, although I might have labeled it as posttraumatic recovery, as many who recover from trauma are different, but not necessarily better, than they were following a traumatic experience.
There are areas of strength within the text and areas that were not as strong. The strengths here are many. This is written by a psychologist who knows this area well. The book is comprehensive and well-referenced. The self-assessment exercises may be quite helpful in work with some patients.
There are also areas of limitations. One of the trickiest aspects of treating a burned-out patient is engaging the person in performing the therapeutic interventions we believe will be of benefit. This is largely not addressed in the book. There is one brief mention in the book that different people have different capacities for resilience and then the subject is never mentioned again. I think the topic of why people have different levels of resilience capacity and what that means to their functioning in the world would have been worth pursuing. As a forensic psychiatrist, I would be interested, for example, in a discussion of how to evaluate an individual’s ultimate level of functioning to estimate future disability. Having an enhanced capacity to predict this through a greater understanding of resilience would thus be helpful to a forensic psychiatrist, but this book provides no help in this area.
Finally, the book insufficiently explores the impact of the environment on burnout. The text twice repeats the same brief quote from another author that indicates indirectly that environment is important, but the book otherwise ignores this subject.
Overall, I found the book interesting and useful and a fruitful addition to the literature.
Footnotes
Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None.
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