What is Burnout? Signs and Symptoms with Dr Claire Plumbly

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

Coming up today, what is burnout and how might, if you are experiencing it over the summer, we are taking a deep dive into this fascinating topic of burnout so that you can be better supported in your journey as a mental health professional. This is such an important topic and it will benefit all areas of your life, including work, family, and friendships too. I think you are going to find it to be completely indispensable. Hope you find it really useful.

(: 00:33

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Now, for those of you who have been in my world for a while, you will know that I have shown up week after week after week because I am here for you. This is your compassionate, safe space. This is your place of complete, unconditional positive regard to quote Rogers, but it can be hard to fit this weekly event in over the summer holidays. And last year, you might recall we had the Summer Sound Bites series. This year we have a Burnout Bites, which is going to be extra special because it is being guest hosted for us by the incredible Dr. Claire Plumbly. This is not a guide just for the summer. This is for every day, every week of the year. So whenever you are listening to this, I think you're going to find it to be so interesting, so nourishing and so helpful.

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You're going to get practical tips to help you to recognise what it is that are going to be really, really useful for you as a person, but also for those that you work with and those around you too. It's just going to be the best thing. And because it does take me so long to record, edit and get all of this uploaded, I have given myself the summer off. And so we've got this all in the can before the summer begins. So it frees me up to spend more time mindfully with my family, whilst also running my clinic. But it was important to me to still show up for you and to help you to move towards your goals, whatever they might be. You definitely don't need to be an aspiring psychologist or mental health professional to find these episodes a real, real help. Whoever you are, humans can absolutely experience burnout, and so you are welcome however you stumbled upon us and I and Claire both hope that you will find it to be time well spent. So with no further ado, let's dive in. Let's meet Claire and get on with episode number one. I will catch you on the other side. Hi, just want to welcome along our guest and too soon to be host of the podcast for a short period of time, Dr. Claire Plumbly. Hi, Claire.

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 02:49

Hello. Yes. I'm just so grateful that you're going to give me your baby, your podcast baby for a few weeks. Thank you. Well, thank you.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:59

Thanks for the idea. I know that it is going to be in very safe hands, but this came about as a result of trying to get you booked in for a session to do a chat about burnout for the podcast, and it sort of just developed quite naturally. As I said, oh, last year over the summer I did a series of smaller episodes and you were like, oh, well maybe we were both should you maybe do those and do it as a anti burnout season. So thanks for being open to new and exciting opportunities.

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 03:34

Yeah, no, it's been great. And I had a little thing about what to call them. We decided burnout bites because it kind of had the dual meaning like burnout can bite, but also short nuggets. So they're only brief episodes, but hopefully each one just delivers quick value or packs a bit of a punch. So a little take home for each thing. Yeah, so I've already recorded those and that was my first experience of just talking in a podcast where I don't have anyone to talk to. So that's been a bit of a learning curve for me. I felt so awkward and I shared a few with you and you were like, okay, why don't you say try those again? So I just came across some sort of wooden dull, so I'm hoping that they're a little more amenable. Now,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 04:25

You've warmed up beautifully. I think by the time you kind of finished, I think episode three we're like, oh, right now we're onto the stride. Why don't we just pop back and have another look at those? But it does take effort and it does take time to allow yourself to grow as a podcaster. I'm a much better podcaster now two and a half years in than I was when I started. But even then I was used to talking to myself. I did lots of free five day challenges and things. So it's a definite art that you can craft and yes, you are growing by the minute as well. So tell us a little bit about you. You are a qualified clinical psychologist.

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 05:02

Yes. So I qualified in 2008, so yeah, probably have over 20 years experience now in mental health, which sounds like a lot. And worked for several years in Islington IAP service. Did that for almost seven years and then went and spent almost three years in the Havens in London, which is a sexual assault referral centre. And then moved to Somerset 2017. And at that point I set up in my private practise amongst all of that, I had three children and I did my EMDR training, kind of started that off at the sexual assualt referral centre and then carried on. And so now I'm also an EMDR consultant supervisor. So I've kind of chipped away at that. I love that model. So yeah, my main models I'd say are EMDR, compassionate mind therapy and a lot of therapists interweave, DBT skills, a bit of ACT, traditional CBT and mindfulness.

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You kind of gather these tools so that when you're faced with complexity, you've got something extra in your toolkit. And part of my experience working with trauma has been to get more familiar with the polyvagal theory, which is why I thought actually this is such a useful approach to understanding the nervous system, why recently I decided to put my knowledge in wisdom. That feels a bit tricky using that word, an expertise into a book. And so yeah, that's what I've got my copy here, but I've mirrored, so I dunno if you want to hold your copy up for anyone watching. So yeah, it's called burnout, how to manage your nervous system before it manages you. And so yeah, it's about 20 years experience of that has gone into that. It's taken me about 18 months to complete as a project, and I'm really hoping that bringing a clinical psychologist lens to this topic will be helpful for people.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 07:06

Absolutely. And I know that we get lots of qualified as well as aspiring psychologists listening to this and people that are working in mental health professional fields or non-related fields trying to get into psychology and any work stream has the capacity for burnout. Even being a parent and not working has the capacity for burnout. It's such a big topic. It's such an important topic. And I know this is something you also speak about on your social channels too. So when people listen to this series of podcast episodes, which you don't need to listen to in order, you don't need to commit to all of them, you can kind of duck in and out when they obviously love what you do. Where can they come and follow you on socials, Claire?

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 07:53

Yeah, I do hang out on a few. I'm a bit like I get different things from different channels. So particularly enjoy connecting with other professionals on Instagram. So that's at Dr. Claire Plumbly. I tend to put out lots of tiktoks and not all my tiktoks make it onto Instagram. So if you are on TikTok, do go and follow me there. I think TikTok allows a bit more of a raw kind of feel to the videos. I like to be a bit more curated on Instagram and yeah, I've been using LinkedIn a little bit more recently, just having a play around more with words because that invites more clever use of words, doesn't it? So I think I just enjoy socials for the freedom and creativity. I dunno if you've found that, but it really has been helpful, especially in my line of work where it's a lot of heavy trauma to bring a bit of lightness and diversity into my week.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 08:44

Yeah, absolutely. And I would totally concur that there's a different vibe, a different feel to the different channels and it depends what I've capacity for as to where I'm hanging, hanging out the most. I would say thank you so much for running with this project and doing it so beautifully. I will look forward to handing back over at the end of the summer. But yeah, thank you

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 09:13

And hope you enjoy your summer off.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 09:16

Thank you. Hope your book baby flies for you. Just remind us when it's being published.

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 09:22

So it's out on the 18th of July, so by the time this airs, maybe it's already just come out. So yeah, do go grab a book, learn all about how polyvagal theory and compassionate mind therapy and act on all these kind of models that we know and already love can support people and yourself maybe with burnout.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 09:42

Perfect. Where can people grab that? Is that the usual Amazon? Waterstones? Yeah,

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 09:47

Exactly. Yep, all those places. All good book bookshops and please do leave a review if you find it helpful as well so others can find it and know it might be the right book for them.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 09:57

Absolutely. And there will be links in the show notes for all of this. So with no further ado, let me pass my podcast baby over to you so that you can guide us through episode one, thinking about what is burnout.

Dr Claire Plumbly (: 10:13

Thank you. Thanks Marianne for the introduction and for lending me your seat in the Aspiring Psychologist podcast for the summer. I'm so delighted to be here and bring everybody my burnout bites. So these are short episodes standalone that are going to tell you all about burnout and some top tips for protecting yourself as you journey towards becoming a psychologist or perhaps if you are already a qualified psychologist. So if you don't dunno me already. I'm Dr. Claire Plumbly. I'm a clinical psychologist and also a specialist in trauma, anxiety and burnout. And I have recently written a book, it's called Burnout, how to Manage Your Nervous System Before It Manages You. And it's available right now to buy on all the usual bookshop sites and you can find the link in the show notes. So very quickly I'm going to run down what to expect in these burnout bites.

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There are six episodes and they're all about 10 minutes long. In today's one I'm going to introduce you to what burnout actually is. A lot of us have an intuitive sense of burnout, but it's not something psychologists are taught about. So it's talked a lot in the occupational health arena and occupational psychologists and coaches always use this term much more confidently than other types of psychologists do. So I'm going to bring you the definition and a really quick assessment tool. So if you are listening to this kind of thinking, I dunno if I'm burned out or not, then make sure you stay to the end of this one. In the follow-up one I'm going to talk about the difference between stress and burnout because even though those terms often used interchangeably, they are actually different. I'm going to introduce you in the third one to the three subtypes of burnout.

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I personally found this really helpful to understand because it's not a one size fits all kind of difficulty. So I personally found that I oscillate between the different ones depending on what's going on and it can be helpful to know what they are. In the following episode, I will give you a stage model of burnout. There are a few different stage models, but the one I draw on in my book and that I'm going to give to you in one of these burnout bites is a five stage model. Stay for that one. If you think you'd like to know where in the stage model you might be or anyone you're working with might be and what the different interventions might look like depending on that. Following that, we've got a burnout bite all about pacing and transition points in the day. So this is going to be about how to care for yourself if you feel like you're starting to move up the stages of burnout or perhaps have already reached it.

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And then in the last episode I'm going to talk about the difference between internal and external pressures. I think external pressures get a lot of airtime. This is all about the demands that are put on us and they are really important and there are a lot of demands, but there are also internal pressures which psychologists, particularly clinical psychologists, often work within the therapy room. And so I'm going to talk about the three patterns that I also describe in my book and you can watch out for this in yourself and also in your clients. So I do hope these six episodes will be helpful to you. Let's get started right now about what actually burnout is. So the official definition and how to recognise the telltale signs in yourself. So let me explain a bit about what burnout actually is. So a lot of people think of exhaustion when they consider burnout, and that's absolutely right.

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Exhaustion is an important aspect of burnout. But there are three different parts to burnout. Exhaustion is only one. It's important to say that it's not a mental health diagnosis. It is considered a syndrome according to the World Health Organisation and the Iicd 11, but it's not in the DSM syndrome means that there is a collection of difficulties all presenting alongside each other and they tend to come up in this pattern. So that's the difference. So I'm going to run through those three in a minute, but one important comment about the official who definition is this, they define it as an occupational phenomenon, a set of difficulties that arise in an unmanaged chronic workplace stress type of situation. And part of the difficulty with this is that we often interpret work as meaning paid work. So the difficulty then is that the experience of millions of unpaid people go unrecognised parents, informal carers, students, all these people often use this word burnout as well.

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And it's now that research and measures are starting to be developed for all of these groups as well as the more occupational paid type of burnout that we've traditionally used that term to describe. So it's an important time to know about burnout and I think so it's really helpful to know this term burnout and to be aware that lots of people really find it a helpful, useful way of describing what they're going through and managed chronic stress due to work can happen in many different environments, paid, informal, unpaid. So what are the three different categories? We've already started talking about exhaustion. This is physical and emotional exhaustion. This is often when people feel really wrung out. Perhaps they've just gone and gone until they can really go no more. And yet they still keep on pushing through. And the result is that they just feel hollow.

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They might feel like they've not got their full repertoire of emotions, joy and happiness. Maybe they're just feeling irritable and grumpy or really cynical and feeling like nobody cares about me and it's hard for me to care about others actually at this point. And this leads us onto the second one, which is this real depersonalization and disconnection. This is when we are often on autopilot. We might get inexperience of brain fog, might feel really distanced from others or like we're zoning out. And the third one is reduced personal accomplishment. This is when you might feel like, oh, I'm just a rubbish therapist, or I'm a rubbish parent or a rubbish friend. We often put ourselves down, we might have low self-esteem imposter syndrome. You might feel like nothing you do is really good enough. And it might be also if you are kind experiencing this in the context of the other two categories of burnout that you are actually kind of coasting and cutting corners, doing your job, not properly, just getting by in a way that maybe you never used to.

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And this can feel like then you are really misaligned with your values and how you really would like to be doing your work. So this definition and these categories come from work done by Christina Mala in the seventies and eighties. She's really the one who brought this definition to the public and made it very well known as a concept burnout. And for anyone who's a little bit interested in some of her backstory, she was actually married to Philip Zimbardo. And if you remember, he's the one who did the Stanford Prison experiment. So the story goes that she actually was invited to see and observe some of this prison experiment. This was the one where young men were invited as participants to be either prison guards or prisoners during the time when they were exploring social influence and conformity. And she turned up and witnessed how the prison guards were acting towards the prisoners and recognised this kind of depersonalization being less emotionally attached to the people in their care.

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And this is partly why the prison experiment was brought to a close earlier than Zimbardo had intended. And it's also thought to have been fairly instrumental in the early days of Christina Maslow's work into her own burnout research and work. Let's think about the effects of this on us because often I think that's when people up for therapy or start to kind of see that things can't go on. So obviously the effects are going to be on things like sleep. So struggling to fall asleep. We talk about feeling. For me personally, I tend to find I start having early morning waking where my body's almost just like adrenaline starts pumping earlier in the day than I really want it to. You might get escapism thoughts, like thoughts about how can I get out of all of this stress? So for me, I often notice when I'm moving down this burnout path, I start to get more thoughts of if only I could get ill, if only I could break a leg or an arm or something.

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That wouldn't mean I'm out of action for too long. But just enough to escape all of this heaviness and busyness. You might also become more socially withdrawn, so you're starting to say no to things that usually you would enjoy doing. Maybe your phone messages are backing up. This is definitely a telltale sign for me where lots of people have contacted me. I keep thinking, oh yeah, I'll get to that and eventually and then I'm just not getting round to it and I feel very disconnected. No idea really what's going on in my friends' lives. You might also notice your intentions to self-care around food or exercise fall off the waggon. So healthy eating and doing anything that moves your body, these are the things that we know will help us. But at the time of most need, we tend to really struggle to do. You might also find the quick fix responses show up like scrolling on social media, turning to have a drink.

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And for me, I find the impulse shopping happens. It's not so much clothes for me, it'll be those adverts springing up on social media that promise some sort of answer. So usually it's some sort of online course which I never get around to watching, and suddenly my bank balance is dropping because I'm spending money on quick courses and workshops prerecorded, which just adds to the overwhelm cause I don't have time to watch them. So I hope some of this is helpful and maybe start to help you to think about your own little moments of overwhelm. So I hope this is helpful for you to start thinking about your maybe telltale signs of burnout. But let me just add quickly that there is a single measure of burnout that you might find helpful. It's quite a quick one, and it has been validated against the Mala burnout inventory as well.

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So here is the question. Overall, based on your understanding of burnout, how would you rate your level of burnout? And there are five ratings. Let me run through them. Rating one, I enjoy my work. I have no symptoms of burnout. Two, I occasionally I am under stress and I don't always have as much energy as I once did, but I don't feel burned out. Three, I'm definitely burning out and I have one or more symptoms of burnout such as physical and emotional exhaustion. Rating four, the symptoms of burnout that I'm experiencing won't go away. I think about frustration at work a lot. Rating four, the sims of burnouts that I'm experiencing won't go away. I think about frustration at work a lot. And finally, rating five. I feel completely burned out and I wonder if I can go on. I'm at the point where I may need some changes or some sort of help.

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So if you score a three or more, this does indicate that you are burned out. This means change is needed. If this sounds like you, then one invitation is for you to listen to these six episodes of Burnout Bites as a starting point. But of course, you can also go and get more immediate support in the form of my book or one-to-one therapy. Thank you so much for joining me in my first episode of Burnout Bites. I really hope you'll come and join me in the second one where I'm going to explain the difference between stress and burnout. I'll see you then.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:27

Oh, what an absolute pleasure. And even I feel like I've learned more about what burnout is, and so as Claire said, this isn't something that's necessarily spoken about on clinical training. So I think you are going to find this really useful, whoever you are. And I thank you for listening. I hope you're already looking forward to catching up with episode two. You don't need to listen to all of them. They are all standalone. To get the maximum benefit, it might well be useful for you to check out the series details in the show notes of how to get Claire's burnout, how to manage your nervous system before it manages you, which is a brilliant read. Then check out the details in my show notes or by clicking any of the links in my bios on social media where I am Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. You can also connect with and follow Dr.

(: 22:17

Claire Plumbly. If you are enjoying this episode, I would love it if you consider following the show or subscribing. If you're watching on YouTube, following and subscribing is just the best free gift you can give to any podcaster. And if you're watching on Spotify or YouTube, please do drop a comment. If you're listening on Apple Podcast, please take a moment to rate the show and you can drop a review on there too. When you listen from your podcast app on your iPhone, come and let me know what you think to this episode in the Aspiring Psychologist community with Dr. Marianne Trent. And don't forget the books, the Clinical Psychologist Collective and the Aspiring Psychologist Collective. And if it's your time and you're ready for the next step and you really want to maximise your chances of avoiding burnout and having a really successful year in psychology, why not consider joining us in the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which you can do for just 30 pounds a month with no minimum term. Thank you so much for being in my world. Thank you so much also for allowing Claire to so generously step into our world. I know that you'll make her feel incredibly welcome to stay kind to yourselves. Let's practise what we preach and make sure that we are thriving, not just surviving. The next episode of the podcast is available on YouTube from 10:00 AM on Saturday and wherever you get your podcast from. 6:00 AM on Monday. Take care. I'll see you very soon.

Jingle Guy (: 23:43

If you psychologist, then let this with this podcast. You'll be on the psychologist.