OCCUPATIONAL BURNOUT AMONG MEDICAL WORKERS: PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Abstract

The article shows the features of professional burnout in health care professionals. In general, this problem has not been studied enough, there is little data on the study of people’s suitability for medical professions in terms of their psychological characteristics, especially the recommendations for adaptation to professional activity. The individual psychological features of people have been studied in great detail in the framework of K. Jung’s theory, which first stated that a person’s thinking and behavior depend directly on the structure of his psyche. Subsequently, his teachings were developed by followers who identified 16 psychological types in the common processes of perception and processing of information, thinking, behavior. Psychotype is an integral concept that defines the psychological features of the interaction of the individual with the environment. The basis of Jungian psychotypes were such properties of higher nervous activity as temperament, speed of processes of arousal and inhibition, in structure the model of psyche of S. Freud (conscious and subconscious) is taken as a basis.

We have made an attempt to divide the basic professional competencies of the physician and the nurse by the functions of Jung: intuition, sensory, logic, ethics. It is established that in the professional activity of medical workers all the Jungian functions are loaded. It should be assumed that the long-term load on the weak functions in the practical activity of the healthcare worker leads to their rapid exhaustion.

Therefore, applying a typological approach based on Jung’s theory would give an opportunity to both specify approaches to the acquisition of professional competencies by health professionals, taking into account their individual characteristics, and to outline measures for the prevention of professional burnout.