Customer Reviews

Women's Burnout: For the Woman Who's Made Commitments to Everyone But Herself

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The authors have written a thorough study of how burnout happens in women, what its symptoms are, and how to cope with it. Their scholarship is impressive, their recommendations are sensible, and their attitude is compassionate. Unfortunately, I think they made a fundamental mistake: they see burnout as essentially the individual's problem, and thus something that it's up to the individual to address.
The fact is that most of the causes of burnout -- e.g., excessive work loads, lack of control, insufficient rewards for the work performed -- are caused by the SITUATION itself and not by the individual. So, although the individual can make things a little better by changing her/his attitude and speaking up for what she/he needs, this won't have much effect unless the situation changes. And if the situation is controlled by a for-profit HMO, or by management whose main concern is the stockholders, there's a more fundamental problem here than the employee's attitude!
Unfortunately, the way most people cope with impending burnout is to detach themselves emotionally from their jobs -- a strategy recommended here, and also, as a general approach to life, by recent books such as Pollan and Levine's "Live Rich." I think this is a serious mistake: as other authors have pointed out, employees need to unite and work with management in order to burnout-proof the situation. If individuals retreat into the "It's only a job" attitude, both employees and the institions they work for will be the losers. Christina Maslach's books present compelling evidence that burnout is situational, rather than an individual problem, and I highly recommend them as a corrective.

...Feeling overwhelmed, the title drew me to the book, but I found out that 99% of it was how to spot burnout! I don't need to know how to spot it as I already am burnedout!I think that many others like me would think that the most valuable information was the conclusion of the book which consisted of 2 pages on prevention and recovery. I will use that information, but shouldn't have wasted me time on the rest! That caused burnout right there!