in the footsteps of hansel and gretel -...

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HANSEL & GRETEL 1

In the Footsteps of Hansel and Gretel

***

Living and Looking at Transformation from the

Inside

Nathalie Flandre

Executive Master in Consulting and Coaching for Change

Thesis

November 2016


I’d like to thank all the people I came across during my self-transformation

journey who provided me with their knowledge, insight, reflections and warm

support. They made this research - and my journey - possible.

To my EMCCC Wave 19 fellows: Many of you were in my mind when writing.

Some of you might even recognize yourselves between the lines. Special thanks to

my early readers for their time and wise feedback.

To my sister, Catherine, for her unwavering attachment and support.

To Sushi and Musti, my two cats, for their unconditional love.

To the dear friends who supported me in one way or another during this

complex journey.

To my “qualified” supporters. Your “unconditional positive regard” helped me

to believe in me.

To the EMCCC team of professors and supervisors who had the wonderful

idea to set up, orchestrate, teach and facilitate such a program, and who champion

the power of night vision so brilliantly.


“What we make of our emotional experience

makes us who we are.”

(Greenberg, 2012, p. 704)

Yang Dong

Retrieved from http://www.inkdancechinesepaintings.com/landscape-chinese-painting-artist.html


Contents

Abstract 5

Keywords 5

Prologue 6

Vignette #5 - The Unexpected Guest (8th April 2016) 7

Introduction 11

An Essential Identity Transformation Journey 11

Research Objectives 13

Recommendations to the Reader 14

Literature Review 15

Methodology 25

The Narrative 28

Vignette #1 – The Ending (Recollection - March 2014) 29

Vignette #2 – The Fall of the Enlightenment (Recollection - April 2014) 32

Vignette #3 – Harry Potter (Recollection - March 2015) 34

Vignette #4 – A High-performing Hedgehog (Recollection - March 2016) 36

Vignette #5 – The Unexpected Guest (8th April 2016) 38

Vignette #6 – The Ugly Duckling (13th June 2016) 40

Vignette #7 – Alienated from Myself (20th June 2016) 43

Vignette #8 – Exhausted (22nd June 2016) 45

Vignette #9 – Module 8 (12th July 2016) 48

Epilogue (31st October 2016) 51

Findings and Discussion 52

Research Limitations 56

Future Research 57

Endnotes 58

Appendix 72

What is burnout? 72

References 83


Abstract

Despite the significance and impact of the burnout phenomenon, many

individuals never sustainably recover from it. It is an adaptive challenge with

underlying cognitive, affective, and behavioral patterns. This study uses

autoethnography to provide insight into a journey of self-transformation subsequent

to a burnout triggered by performance-based contingent self-esteem. It is supported

by several conceptual frameworks, i.e. attachment theory, sociometer theory,

theoretical approaches to stress appraisal and coping strategies, and the six motives

of identity construction. The narrative illustrates how identity was redefined using

dialogical self theory and recent findings from affective neuroscience and

interpersonal neurobiology to make sense of the thoughts and feelings experienced.

The findings suggest that burnout provides an opportunity to acquire a new sense of

self, which includes positive affect, belonging, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, which in

turn generate resilience. More than a healing process, a mid-life burnout is a chance

to undertake individuation and become more authentic and integrated into a well-

functioning whole.

Keywords: Attachment Security, Autoethnography, Belonging, Burnout, Dialogical

Self, Emotions, Identity Threat, Resilience, Self-Esteem, Self-Transformation


Prologue

The story I’d like to take you through, dear Reader, is my story. It is a story of

self-transformation, a 30-month journey through the darkness of the unknown, which

followed “the fall”. As in all stories, there is a trigger. I didn’t choose to embark on this

journey. I was unfortunate – as it seemed at the time – to have to face the

unthinkable: one day in January 2014 I couldn’t get up to go to work. Although I

knew that I would get into trouble if I didn’t show up, my whole body refused to obey

my will. I had spent the previous two weeks of the Christmas break curled up in a

ball on my sofa, alone, unable to speak to – or to cope with – any human being. I

couldn’t make sense of what was happening to me. I felt exhausted, worn out. I was

naively counting on two weeks rest to get back on track. But it was as if a safety

device had tripped in my mind; to switch it off took more than two years. I was

burned out.

Despite the awful start to this story, there is a happier unfolding and, more

interestingly, an amazing, enriching and meaningful journey that I’d like to share.

One event convinced me that there had been a journey – that I wasn’t simply

wandering in darkness. At the time, I had been an EMCCC1 student for a year and

was preparing to return to professional life, investigating a new career path. For my

thesis I wanted to explore the psychodynamic processes which accompany an

identity transformation, hoping to discover cues that might indicate whether I was

becoming more resilient. Unexpectedly, at the end of a long working day, an

impromptu dialogue started in my mind between two well-known sides of me. On a

trial basis, I began to capture my inner dialogue.


Vignette #5 - The Unexpected Guest (8th April 2016)

It is the evening. I am at home and have been working for hours in front of my

computer, sitting at the big dining table in the living room. I am facing the windows

overlooking my garden, but which only reflect the night for the moment. My cats are

sleeping, my neighbors have been home for quite a while, and it’s quiet. There are

papers and books everywhere around me. I start to feel hungry. My back hurts as I

haven’t moved much over the few last hours. I feel tired but have an urge to continue

working as long as possible.

Voice 1 – Keep going. You haven’t finished.

Voice 2 – I’ve been working the whole day! I work all the time, 7 days a week. I never

think of anything else. I’m tired.

Voice 1 - But you hardly work 40 hours a week! How can you feel so tired? Why

don’t you work more during weekdays? You could make some time for yourself

during week-ends. Are you ever going to return to a normal rhythm, like when you

had a job?

Voice 2 - I don’t know. I can’t do more per day. If I don’t work every day, I don’t reach

40 hours.

Voice 1 - But you used to work much more in the past! Remember your 12 hours a

day during the exam periods at university. Remember your average of 60 hours per

week when you were working. Is that over forever? Will you ever be able to work

normally? How are you going to cope with a professional life?

Voice 2 - I know, it’s frightening. I’m doing as much as I can, believe me. I hope to

progressively increase the workload to catch up to my previous capacity. I am so

afraid of what would happen if I was impaired forever, not able to deliver as much as

required.


Voice 3 - Come on, both of you! Remember what our therapist told us: Are you sure

we’re working only 40 hours a week?

Voice 1 - She records everything on Excel! Isn’t it a normal schedule?

Voice 2 - I agree. I didn’t understand why my work progressed so slowly. Hopefully,

the spreadsheet records my working time.

Voice 3 – Did you also record the time spent thinking in the bath?

Voice 2 – Well, it is true that I have ideas for the EMCCC papers, practicum and

thesis when I am trying to fall asleep or when I wake up after a dream, when I cook

or take a warm bath to relax. Ideas emerge when I speak with friends, when I drive

or when I go food shopping. It’s the same with my job search. I project myself in

provisional work identities, tweaking my former work identity while trying to maintain

coherence and a sense of authenticity with validation from my new peer network.2

It’s tricky.

Voice 1 – It has to be done; there’s no way around it. You can’t throw this good

thinking material away. You’d better carry notes with you everywhere to make sure

that you don’t forget anything.

Voice 2 - Yes, that stops me from cluttering my mind with stuff I am afraid to forget.

Voice 3 - Hey guys, what you describe is hard work – intensive even. We are

working too much. Isn’t that an old habit which sneaked back? No wonder we feel

tired. Our therapist advised us to take regular breaks – so where are they?

Voice 2 - Perhaps you’re right. We work a lot more than 40 hours per week. But we

need a job as soon as possible, don’t we? There is no time to lose, no compromise

on the job search. The thesis can’t wait either: the more we work on it, the further

along it will be when we start the new job. I’d rather avoid doing both simultaneously.

Voice 3 - We had that kind of strategy in the past, didn’t we? To work as much as

possible to be prepared for anything that might happen. Are we going to risk another

burnout?


Voice 2 - No way – anything but that.

Voice 3 - Then we all agree on that one. Let’s manage our energy. We have no

choice but to contain anxiety, impatience, frustration. Let’s accept the things we can’t

change, have the courage to change the things we can, and have the wisdom to

know the difference.3 Let’s stick to the concept of a journey: we are on the right

track; we just need to step back, take some distance, and breathe. This is a

marathon, not a sprint.

Voice 2 - OK, let’s take a break. I am going to stop working for today.

Voice 1 (speechless)

***

When I woke up the next day, I felt compelled to review what I had written the

night before. Then it hit me. When I started to capture the dialogue, I never imagined

a third voice joining the conversation. I had no difficulty recognizing Voice 1, the

demanding “Father-in-my-mind”, or Voice 2, “Super-me”, the compliant insecure

overachiever,4 which had been one of my personas for a long time.5 I knew that the

dynamic between the two was the key to understanding what was happening to me.

But I had no clue about Voice 3, the unexpected guest. By turning up that evening, it

had been recorded in the transcript, which proved its existence once and for all.

Voice 3 had accomplished quite a feat: Father-in-my-mind and Super-me

colluded to argue that working hard was the only solution. However, the unexpected

guest managed to convince Super-me to stop working and to drive Father-in-my-

mind away. Could it be that the unexpected guest was an emerging part of myself,

promoting a behavior change and thereby allowing me to return – more equipped

and resilient – to normal professional life?

I felt compelled to find out who this guest was. Had it always been in my mind,

hidden in the unconscious? Or was it born after the burnout? What were the

enablers of its manifestation, the nurturing circumstances?


Like Hansel in Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm,6 I decided to look

for white pebble stones – the traces left by the unexpected guest from the day of the

fall until it spoke out.

In parallel, I began a literature journey through Insead’s journal database, in

hope of finding insights which would allow me to make sense of what happened and

understand the significance of this alternative voice. Hansel’s pebble stones were

said to shine like newly-minted silver coins in the moonlight, and it was my “night

vision” that enabled me to spot them in the forest of academic articles, conceptual

constructs, theoretical frameworks and research experiments.7 Serendipity, i.e. a mix

of insight and intuition,8 allowed me to identify a common thread, from the root

causes of burnout, via belonging and self-esteem mechanisms, to identity

construction. And from there to select the life episodes (between January 2014 and

July 2016) that shed light on my journey.

I am therefore taking you on a double journey; firstly, a journey through the

research literature which supports (from a theoretical perspective) the ‘why and how’

of self-transformation. And secondly, a narrative journey, which adds color, detail

and substance to the lived experience from the inside.

Welcome to my inner world.


Introduction

An Essential Identity Transformation Journey

What does an identity transformation journey look like from the inside? The

world is changing and stress is everywhere. Although the work environment has

been designated the most important predictor of burnout, risk differs across

individuals and extends beyond the professional arena. People who seek to

compensate for an insecure attachment pattern – and thus low self-esteem – by a

contingent self-esteem based on performance are prone to experience burnout in

stressful conditions because they tend to experience it as an identity threat, to

choose inefficient coping mechanisms, and to fail to take the appropriate distance

when the situation evolves beyond their control.

Self-esteem is involved in the two domains of identity functioning, i.e.

cognitive and behavioral processes on one side, and affective processes on the

other. Recovering from burnout sustainably – i.e. without experiencing another

burnout in the future – means developing resilience and implies a change not only in

behavior but in our fundamental beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world

around us. It is an adaptive challenge – to both social and working environments –

which requires us to redefine our identity.9 Despite the increasing prevalence and

personal and financial costs of the phenomenon called burnout – for the individual,

their family, the organization, and broader society – the magnitude of the change

which needs to be accomplished is often underestimated. Many individuals either

experience repeated burnouts or decide to move away from business life – often with

dire consequences for their health and well-being.

There is still debate in the literature about the definition, root causes and

treatment of burnout, and no data about the effectiveness of treatment in the long

term. Although the connection between lack of self-esteem and burnout has been

established, and the mechanisms of identity transformation have been modelled,

first-hand accounts haven’t linked these together to illustrate the personal

development journey required to develop resilience. Moreover, there are few insights


about the actual lived experience of the unconscious psychodynamics at play during

identity transformation, the reconstruction of self-esteem, and the development of

resilience.

This thesis integrates the different theoretical frameworks underlying the

transformation journey. Using attachment and sociometer theories as well as

theoretical approaches of stress appraisal and coping strategies, I conceptualise

burnout as a failure to manage an identity threat. The motives of identity

construction, dialogical self theory, and recent findings from affective neuroscience

and interpersonal neurobiology support the mechanisms of identity transformation.

The research method used is autoethnography, which provides rich insights

into this widespread social phenomenon by using the lived experience of the

researcher to connect the reader with his/her inner thoughts and feelings through the

narrative. The 30 months which followed the day I stopped working as a result of

burnout – from January 2014 to July 2016 – are used to illustrate my self-

transformation, with its challenges, setbacks and successes, using these frameworks

to make sense of the thoughts and feelings I experienced along the way.

“…feelings are a more fundamental confirmation of personal existence;

because your thoughts can be shared by others, but your feelings are yours

alone: ‘I feel, therefore I am’.”

(Bartolini, 1996, p. 173)


Research Objectives

When it comes to burnout, it is tempting to focus on organizational prevention.

However, the utmost concern of most people having suffered from burnout is to

make sure that it will never happen again, whatever external conditions they might

encounter in the future. It is less a question of accountability than of personal safety

and well-being. Admittedly, it is wiser, if not easier, to take control of our own destiny

and change ourselves than to expect the outside world to change for the better. If

preventing a relapse is of utmost importance for the individuals concerned, personal

development, in the broad sense of the word, seems unavoidable.

The objective of this study is thus to explore the psychodynamic processes

which take place during a journey of self-transformation aimed at recovering from a

burnout caused by performance-based contingent self-esteem – as well as to identify

the key transformation enablers and the cues indicating a move towards resilience.

In order to learn, survival anxiety needs to exceed learning anxiety (Coutu,

2002).10 By narrating my story I aim to raise awareness of what is at stake.

Maladjusted behavior patterns take root in the unconscious (yet essential) struggle to

maintain self-esteem; failure to recognize this is dangerous as making superficial

changes are not enough to preserve the individual from future potentially hurtful

external conditions. Although the magnitude of the change required can be scary,

survival anxiety is an impetus to transform. By sharing how I made sense of this

experience with others, I hope to enhance their sense of psychological safety and

thereby reduce their learning anxiety so that they are better equipped to challenge

deeply-held assumptions and have the courage to transform.

As support from relatives and friends is a strong asset in burnout recovery, my

aim is also to help “significant others” apprehend the magnitude and depth of the

transformation required. After all, they have to contain the stress of having to interact

day after day for a long period of time, with an individual in distress.


Recommendations to the Reader

A final caveat before we dive into the story. As autoethnography is my

methodology, I have tried to avoid disruption and digression in the flow of the story

as much as possible to allow you to “feel” the transformation unfolding as you read.

The numbers inserted in the text refer to the endnote section. In doing so, I slightly

digress from APA formatting. My recommendation is to first read the main text

without looking at the endnotes. A second reading can be done with the main text

and the printed endnotes side by side, allowing you to cross-reference the

explanations without having to scroll up and down through the document.

If you’d like prior insight on the burnout phenomenon before starting my story,

you’ll find it in the Appendix.


Literature Review

Two figures at the end of this chapter illustrate my flow of thought. I first

review the burnout literature, i.e. definition, impact and putative root causes. I then

review the literature which supports the view of burnout as an identity threat, i.e.

attachment theory, sociometer theory, and theories of stress appraisal and coping

strategies (see Figure 1). Next, I cover the literature that address identity

transformation dynamics, i.e. the motives of identity construction, the dialogical self

theory, recent findings from affective neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology

(see Figure 2), followed by transition, resilience and individuation concepts.

Burnout

Since burnout emerged as a concept in the 1970s, many researchers such as

Freudenberger (1975) and Maslach (Schaufeli, Leiter & Maslach, 2008) have looked

into the phenomenon. Burnout can be defined as a syndrome of multi-level response

to prolonged exposure to stress and characterized by physical and psychological

exhaustion, depersonalisation, and a sense of helplessness and low self-efficacy

(Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001). Although many researchers use the three-

dimensional conceptualization of burnout,11 they may refer to different things

(Schaufeli et al., 2008). Burnout is neither specific to human service work (Schaufeli

et al., 2008);12 nor even necessarily job-related (Bianchi, Truchot, Laurent, Brisson &

Schonfeld, 2014; Hallsten, Josephson & Torgén, 2005).13

Burnout is a painful, dysfunctional condition that is costly for the individual,

their family, the workplace, and society. It is associated with stress-related health

outcomes and mental health issues and impairs relationships within the family.14 It

invariably leads to deterioration in the performance of the entire organization as it

impacts presenteeism, absenteeism, turnover, job performance and productivity

(Swider & Zimmerman, 2010). The magnitude of the phenomenon is expensive for

society (e.g. unemployment, social security spending) and extends beyond the

Western World.15


Many researchers have investigated the root causes, particularly the

imbalance between job demands and job resources within the organizational

context.16 Broader social and economic changes have resulted in employment

conditions that have made many workers vulnerable to burnout.17 According to

Maslach and Leiter (2008), the individual’s inner experience of strain mediates

between external stressors and work outcomes. This has generated intervention

strategies for treatment and prevention, targeted at helping the individual to cope

with workplace stressors or modifying the organizational factors that trigger burnout.

However, the effectiveness and long-term effects of these interventions are not

conclusive (Maricuţoiu, Sava & Butta, 2016; Schaufeli et al., 2008).

While stressful aspects of the work environment may be more important

predictors of burnout than personality, it has to be acknowledged that the risk of

burnout differs across individuals (Bakker & Van der Zee, 2006). Researchers have

investigated demographics and characteristics such as perfectionism, resilience, the

big five personality factors,18 and emotional intelligence,19 in an attempt to identify

vulnerable individuals. To understand the complex link between personality and

burnout it is necessary to dig further into the mechanisms of coping with stress.

Coping with Stress

According to Lazarus (1993), psychological stress does not result from

passive exposure to the environment; rather, it is the result of its juxtaposition with a

person’s beliefs.20 Confronted with potential stressors, two individuals will experience

a situation differently in the very same circumstances, depending on the context,

their previous experience, and their perception of themselves and of others.

According to Johnstone and Feeney (2015), stress appraisal is a two-step

process: individuals first appraise the threat, and then the resources available to

cope with the threat, e.g. personal resources and social support.21 Stress appraisal

triggers the selection of coping strategies.22 Active coping strategies, such as

solving problems, seeking support or directly addressing the stressor involve taking

action to change or control the situation, alter or reduce the stressors. This form of

positive adaptation to stressful conditions implies that the individual thinks he has

sufficient internal coping abilities and external resources to succeed.


When individuals appraise the situation as overwhelming and their resources

as inadequate, they focus on regulating the emotions aroused by the situation rather

than on the stressor itself. Emotion-focused coping strategies such as self-blame,

self-isolation, depersonalization, and denial are efforts in thought to deal with

negative emotions.23 While positive reinterpretation and seeking emotional support

can have positive effects when the situation is beyond the individual’s control, this

form of coping does not deal with the stressor and may negatively impact their

physical and emotional well-being in the long term. The use of emotion-focus coping

strategies is correlated with burnout (Shin, Park, Ying, Kim, Noh and Lee, 2014).

While the choice of coping strategies partly depends on the social context,

personality influences how people appraise potential stressors and the coping

resources available (Moate, Gnilka, West & Bruns, 2016). Constructs such as

resilience,24 self-efficacy,25 positive affect,26 mindfulness,27 and secure attachment

are correlated with active coping (Armstrong & Rimes, 2016; Li & Nishikawa, 2012).

Unsecure Attachment and Contingent Self-Esteem

According to attachment theory (Bowlby, 1982), the individual’s attachment

pattern (i.e. secured or unsecured) is acquired during childhood as a result of

interactions with early caregivers. These initial experiences become internalized in

their internal working models, i.e. mental representations of the self and of the self in

relation to others (Zaccagnino, Cussino, Saunders, Jacobvitz & Veglia, 2014).

Attachment avoidance is correlated to negative working models of others (i.e. as

unavailable and untrustworthy) and produces a perceived lack of social support.28

Attachment anxiety is related to negative models of the self (i.e. as unworthy,

unlovable and inadequate) and generates low self-esteem, feelings of helplessness

and powerlessness.29 No wonder that unsecured attachment impacts the perception

of threats and of available coping resources, which in turn foster the selection of

emotion-focused coping mechanisms (Johnstone & Feeney, 2015).

In sociometer theory (Leary, 2005), self-esteem is conceptualized as a gauge

of social inclusion: one’s sense of worth depends on one’s assessment of the extent

to which one is accepted. The sociometer “monitors the social environment for cues

indicating low or declining relational evaluation [e.g. avoidance, disinterest,


disapproval, rejection] and warns the individual when such cues are detected”

(Leary, 2005, p. 75). “The desire for interpersonal attachment, the need to belong, is

a fundamental human motivation” (Baumeister & Leary, 1995, p. 520).

Individuals who lack self-esteem from secure attachment compensate with

contingent self-esteem.30 They relentlessly pursue others’ approval to feel worthy,

seeking either admiration for their performance (performance-based self-esteem),

emotional support (relation-based self-esteem), or both, to satisfy their need for self-

validation and “earn” self-esteem.31 This has proven to be an “unreliable and

vulnerable basis for self-esteem” (Johnson and Blom, 2007, p. 300).

Identity Threat

One theory is that burnout corresponds to a crisis of self-worth among

individuals whose self-esteem is contingent on performance.32 Environmental

stressors are then appraised as being threats to self-esteem (Hallsten et al., 2005).

Burnout can thus be seen as a process of unsuccessful striving to raise a fragile self-

esteem using seemingly active coping processes such as perfectionism and working

overtime, which in fact aggravate the psychological effect of the situation. When the

stressors are prolonged or recurrent, the coping efforts may become too demanding.

The high stakes prevent individuals stepping back; their over-commitment impedes

the realization that the effort-reward ratio is imbalanced. Burnout occurs when

functional capacity is affected (Hallsten et al., 2005): cutting off is a way to shelter

the threatened identity when the individual’s strength is weakened, which elicits a

feeling of vulnerability (Ekstedt & Fagerberg, 2005). As people with low basic self-

esteem tend to attribute failures to their own personal characteristics instead of

coping actively, it negatively impacts their affect. Individuals who experience burnout

were often characterized prior to the crisis by high involvement and high

engagement, but after it they experience resignation, demoralization and

disengagement (Hallsten et al., 2005).33

From this perspective, “burnout becomes more of a cognitive and motivational

process than just a stress process” and can occur in any activity “with a potential for

self-expression or self-definition” (Hallsten et al., 2005, pp. 29 & 3).


Need for Identity Transformation

If the root cause of burnout is a lack of self-esteem, sustainable recovery

requires finding ways to compensate for the unsecure attachment pattern inherited

from the early days.34 To improve threat and resource appraisal, coping strategies

and resilience, it is imperative to address issues of belonging, self-efficacy and the

need for meaning, which all impact self-esteem and in turn positive affects (Vignoles,

Regalia, Manzi, Golledge & Scabini, 2006). This implies a profound change in

beliefs, in one’s view of self and of others, which transforms one’s identity.

Identity can be defined as “the subjective concept of oneself as a person”

(Vignoles et al. 2006, p. 309).35 It has cognitive, affective, and behavioral

dimensions. Six motives influence identity construction: self-esteem, continuity,

distinctiveness, belonging, self-efficacy, and meaning.36 Self-esteem is the most

powerful, as it influences all dimensions of identity.37 Although all six influence the

interplay of cognitive and behavioral processes, affective processes are a separate

domain of identity functioning.38 They are mainly impacted by belonging, self-

esteem, and self-efficacy (Batory, 2014; Vignoles et al., 2006).39

Cognitive and Behavioral Dimensions of the Self

Following W. James concept of the “extended self”, dialogical self theory is

the latest version of the longstanding idea of the multiplicity of the self (Hermans,

2014).40 The dialogical self is a “dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I-

positions in the society of mind”, analogous to the macro society, with voices that

“interact like characters in a story or movie and are caught up in processes of

question and answer, agreement and disagreement, conflict and struggle,

negotiation and integration” (Hermans, 2014, p. 139). The self is conceptualized as

containing both personal positions and positions of “others in the self”, which may be

in the foreground or background, dominant or hidden, and engage in healthy or

distress-related mode of communication.41

This internal complexity is constantly being reorganized to adapt to changing

external conditions (Batory, 2014). However, when engaged in monologue or

organized in coalitions, I-positions may be maladaptive and inhibit the development


of the self as a whole.42 Promoter positions,43 meta positions,44 and innovative

moments45 enable change through the existence of a dialogical self46 within a

dialogical space.47

The dialogical nature of identity and the six motives of identity construction

explain changes in identity structure. However, internal dialogical activity impacts

only the cognitive and behavioral dimensions; as it doesn’t impact the affective

domain, it appears ineffective to resolve an identity threat (Batory, 2014).48

Right Brain Hardwiring and the Affective Dimension of the Self

“In the infant brain, states become traits” (Schore, 2002, p. 18). Relational

experiences with early caregivers, for better or worse, impact the development of the

infant’s psychic structure and his emergent subjective self.49 The inner

representations of early attachment experiences encode strategies of affect

regulation and stress coping mechanisms. Research suggests that these are

imprinted on the adult’s right brain, which stores implicit unconscious and relational

functions which aren’t accessible by the explicit, conscious, cognitive left brain.

Emotional resilience, well-being and stress coping strategies rely on spontaneous

emotional processes which take place in the right brain (Schore, 2014).50

Psychotherapy is one way to address a deficit in self-structure.51 Within the

“therapeutic alliance”, new affective exchanges during the clinical encounter allow

the patient to receive “implicit relational knowledge”, to rewire his right brain.52 The

development of self-reflexivity, combined with long-term treatment, allows for

alterations of his/her nonconscious internal working models (Schore, 2014).

Enduring emotional change can be achieved through new emotional experiences,

reflected upon to create new meaning, and build new implicit emotion regulation

capacities (Greenberg, 2012).53 Other practices such as mindfulness improve

awareness and handling of emotions (Shapiro, Carlson, Astin & Freedman, 2006).54

Transition

According to Bridges (2009, p. 3), transition is “a three-phase process that

people go through when they internalize and come to terms with the details of the


new situation.” Transition starts with an ending (i.e. dealing with loss and letting go of

the old identity) and finishes with a beginning (i.e. developing a new identity and

discovering a new sense of purpose). In between there is a “neutral zone”, a liminal

phase, “a psychological no-man’s-land between the old reality and the new one”,

“when the critical psychological realignments and repatternings take place”.

Whereas the failure to identify and prepare for ending is the biggest risk for

people in transition, the neutral zone, “both a dangerous and opportune place”, is at

the core of the transition process (Bridges, 2009, pp. 5 - 9). Escaping prematurely

from it would compromise the outcome and jeopardize an opportunity to renew.55

The three phases overlap but need to occur for the transition to be completed.

Resilience

Resilience is “the ability to recover, re-bound, bounce-back, adjust or even

thrive following misfortune, change or adversity” (Rees, Breen, Cusack & Hegney,

2015, p. 2). It is a multidimensional construct consisting of various psychological

attributes which influence the way individuals assess and respond to stressful

situations. While protective factors include self-efficacy, positive affect, self-esteem

and social support, risk factors include anxiety, perceived stress and negative affect

(Lee, Nam, Kim, Kim, Lee & Lee, 2013).56 Resilient individuals are more stable

emotionally, more flexible to change, and more likely to successfully adapt to

stressful events (Li & Nishikawa, 2012).57

“Earned-secure” is the term used to describe individuals who manage to

change their attachment pattern to improve their inner security (Zaccagnino et al.,

2014). According to Schore (2002, p. 13), “Resilience in the face of stress and

novelty is an ultimate indicator of attachment security”.

Individuation

Individuation has been defined as “the drive of the self to consciousness”

(Schmidt, 2005, p. 604). For Jung, the self is ultimately unknowable since the ego

which develops from it, can’t fully perceive it. Individuation is an active on-going

process of self-realization, which tends to accelerate in the second half of life, “the


means by which one finds oneself and becomes who one really is” (Schmidt, 2005,

p. 596). It requires renouncing an illusion, a “surrendering of the ego’s dominion” and

a reconciliation of opposites, e.g. persona and shadow.58 It enables one to

progressively become more finely-shaded, more whole, and less dependent on

others’ opinions (Fauré, 2011).

Finding oneself, or, more exactly, our multiple selves, implies adjusting one’s

interfaces to be true to oneself, while at the same time being flexibly adapted to

one’s environment and authentic in one’s relations with others.59 “Although

identification shifts from one sub-personality to another, it is possible to develop a

growing sense that there is something embodied, coherent, continuous, integrated,

and transcendent at play within us, which feels like one self” (Schmidt, 2005, p. 612).

“Relational factors lie at the core of the change mechanism.”

(Shore, 2014, p. 393)


Figure 1 : Burnout as an identity threat.


Figure 2 : The mechanisms of identity transformation


Methodology

From the start, I knew I wanted to explore the psychodynamic processes

which accompany identity transformation. When choosing a subject for the thesis,

we had breakout group discussions to exchange ideas. “Isn’t there enough matter in

your journey for an autoethnography?” someone suggested. My first reaction was

surprise: “Why would anyone be interested in my inner mess for thesis research?” “Is

it really a serious research methodology?” I asked our thesis supervisor in the

plenary session. “Yes, but there are rules to follow!” she cautioned. That sounded

tricky: autoethnography isn’t autobiography and the boundary seemed fuzzy to me. I

kept my distance.

However, when the unexpected guest turned up, it suddenly became

inescapable. I started to think about autoethnography as a way to explore the inner

experience of an identity transformation, what Bridges (2009, p. 8) describes as “the

limbo between the old sense of identity and the new”, a liminal phase which is

difficult for an outsider to grasp.60 I decided to narrate my own life experience, tracing

my journey across time. My observing ego would witness the unfolding of the

transformation with sense of curiosity and try to make sense of the experience.61

Autoethnography uses personal experience (i.e. my thoughts and feelings

during my self-transformation) as primary data as it seeks to expand the

understanding of social phenomena (i.e. the burnout phenomenon). Ellis wrote in

2009: “As an autoethnographer, I am both the author and focus of the story, the one

who tells and the one who experiences, the observer and the observed…I am the

person at the intersection of the personal and the cultural, thinking and observing as

an ethnographer and writing and describing as a storyteller” (Denzin, 2015, p.123).

As a first step, I’ve tried to write an evocative narrative, to show rather than

tell, exposing my vulnerabilities in order to engage the reader. I’ve tried to create rich

and emotionally intense descriptions of my lived experiences in order to bring the

reader as close as possible to feeling the same emotions, to facilitate understanding

of those experiences. “Autoethnography wants the reader to care, to feel, to


empathize, and to do something, to act. It needs the researcher to be vulnerable and

intimate” (Ellis & Bochner, 2006, p. 433).

The second step was to make sense of my narrative. “It is about holding

collected fragments of life against the present light and making sense of their

significance within the bigger context of my life” (Chang, 2015, p. 115). Several

questions emerged. First, “How do I know if I am right in my interpretation?” I believe

that there is no truth beyond experience; the meaning of our life results from the

sense-making of what we remember having experienced. However, the truth can’t be

stable as memory is active, dynamic and ever-changing. “The past is always open to

revision and so, too, are our stories of the past and what they mean now” (Bochner,

2015, p. 54). I won’t know if I am right. I might revisit this one day and I’ll keep it

open-ended, avoiding finality or closure.

Second, “How connected is my personal story to the social and cultural

environment?” According to Denzin (2015, p. 124), for Sartre, “No individual is just

an individual; each person is a ‘universal singular’, summed up and for this reason

universalized by his or her historical epoch”. Interpretive autoethnography moves

back and forth in time, trying to connect the historical, cultural and biographical

context with the way the events are experienced by the person (Denzin, 2015).

Burnout is a cultural phenomenon, anchored in the early 21st century, as well as my

own way of dealing with it.

Third, “How applicable is my personal story to others?” By processing painful,

confusing, angering and uncertain cultural experiences, autoethnography can be

beneficial for the author - to figure out how to live better – and it can make others’

lives better by giving them “equipment for living” (Holman Jones, Adams & Ellis,

2015, p. 35).

Were there rules to follow? For personal writing to be autoethnographic it

needs to (a) highlight the relationship of lived experience and stories to culture and

cultural practices, (b) demonstrate knowledge of past research and seek to

contribute to it, (c) embrace vulnerability with purpose, and (d) create a reciprocal

relationship with audiences in order to compel a response (Holman Jones et al.,

2015). I kept these criteria in mind all the way through.


The narrative is organized in autoethnographic “vignettes” – biographically

meaningful events or moments which took place within a 30-month time period. I

have focused on epiphanies, i.e. moments that had an effect at a deep level and

triggered a change in my thinking or emotional process.62 After each one, I take the

stance of the observing ego to make sense of what I had experienced.

There are two types of vignettes: contemporaneously written ones captured

shortly after the events are all posterior to the unexpected guest’s emergence

(vignettes 5 to 9). The earlier ones (1 to 4) are recollected from distant events. I

revisited the past and re-experienced it with a heightened self-reflexivity.63 I was

helped in my recollection by EMCCC’s case and reflection papers, the notebook

where I recorded ground-breaking insights, and highlighted passages from books.

Narrative inquiry emphasizes communication, doesn’t close down

interpretation, and stays open to other meanings (Ellis & Bochner, 2006). My

research includes detailed narratives as required by the autoethnographic

methodology, which has an inherent effect on the length of this paper. I have

resisted the temptation to generalize or extrapolate some sort of theoretical

proposition from my work. For Hannah Arendt, storytelling is an activity which

“reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it” (Ellis & Bochner, 2006,

p. 438).

“The question of happiness

is the most urgent calling of autoethnography.”

(Bochner, 2015, p. 53)


The Narrative

January 2014 – July 2016


Vignette #1 – The Ending (Recollection - March 2014)

It is raining. I am ill and I feel depressed. I am just back from a one-week

skiing holiday in France with friends. I love skiing and the ambiance which reigns

over these places. I was happy to go with my friends and their lovely family, as it

made me feel included. I felt good, happy, grateful; I thought that my misery was

behind me. I had counted on this holiday to get back in shape and give me the

energy to search for a new job.

The opposite happened. I got flu the second day after arrival. I spent my

holiday in bed, fighting a fever, without the strength to go out, my sympathetic friends

bringing me food. I felt desperate and powerless, angry with my body for not making

the most of my well-deserved vacation. I wasn’t able to enjoy the brilliant sunshine

until the last day.

Flashback, January – February 2014. When burnout was diagnosed, I

understood that the situation deserved attention and that I needed to improve my

lifestyle. From the outset, I decided to pay attention to my food, my sleeping and

exercise habits. I established a new rhythm of life: slower, healthier, more mindful. I

joined a sports club, resumed meditation and light therapy, decided to walk every

day and to try new healthy recipes. I even made a compliance checklist!

However, the situation proved to be more serious than I thought. There were

days when I couldn’t go out or even dress, preferring to watch TV series. I had

numerous nightmares and sleepless nights. Speaking to human beings was a

challenge which often left me exhausted, frustrated, feeling lonely and not

understood. I cried often, for no apparent reason; everyone was hurting me. I started

to dread interactions and spread them thinly. I preferred the company of my cats. I

also found it hard to concentrate – I couldn’t really read – and to do two things at the

same time – I managed to lock myself out when talking and I couldn’t interact when

cooking. These functioning hurdles made me feel inefficient and powerless, and also

frightened by their magnitude.


I got fired in February, which I felt was unfair, and plunged back down.

However, it reinforced my determination to stick to my program, convinced that it

would soon be over. After two months of this treatment I felt rested and planned to

leverage the energy I got from sun, outdoor sport and friendship to make a new start.

March 2014. I am back home, alone. I suspect there is a meaning to what

happened, which still escapes me. I am supposed to search for a new job, but I

can’t. I have no energy. I don’t believe any more that my program will be sufficient to

get my life back on track. For the first time, I think that I won’t make it alone. I need

help. I need someone who knows what burnout is and how to get through it.

***

Is it a coincidence that my burnout happened in mid life, when energy

becomes precious? I was of the opinion that my work environment wasn’t tougher

than any other. I used to think my energy level was unlimited. I understood resilience

as the capacity to endure unbearable situations. So, I was taken aback by my body’s

reaction. I was told that burnout symptoms were alleviated when the exposure to the

working environment stops… but that they usually come back upon return if nothing

else has changed. Did my flu function as a safety switch to prevent me going back to

work too soon? Was it a bodily manifestation of an unconscious anticipation of a

likely relapse?

A burnout crisis evolves in seven stages (Peters & Mesters, 2008) and

involves a whole set of feelings before acceptance. I experienced denial (a), when I

refused to stop working despite my doctor’s warnings. Anger (b) was associated with

the lack of response of the organization to my dedication. The shock came when I

couldn’t get up to go to work. The negotiation stage (c) started in January with the

focus on my healthy program as the solution to the crisis. The doubt, uncertainty and

depression stage (d) was triggered by my failed holiday. Acceptance (e), the fifth

stage, allowed me to step back and take back control of my life.

Looking back, I see this moment as a turning point, i.e. the end of the first

phase of the transition, when I stopped hanging on to the idea that I would get back

on track without changing anything other than my lifestyle. I surrendered to the idea


that my will was powerful enough to impose itself on my body. Intuitively, however, I

knew that it meant revisiting major beliefs and assumptions, and I suspected that it

would last much longer. This is the moment when I started to mourn a certain idea of

who I was and let go of the idea of the person I would be in the near future. I started

to accept the reality of what was happening to me.

I decided to search for a specialized coach, forgot about the job search, and

prepared to throw myself into the darkness of a journey in the neutral zone. The

outcome seemed uncertain; I had no clue where it would lead me.


Vignette #2 – The Fall of the Enlightenment (Recollection - April 2014)

I am home and I am absorbed in reading. A week ago, I asked my coach for

book recommendations. I was impatient to progress and the rhythm of our sessions

seemed too slow. The one I started with actually changed my life. “Du Plaisir au

Désir de Changer” by Kourilsky (2008) tackles, among other topics, the theme of the

analytic, linear, binary way of thinking inherited from the Enlightenment.64

The text imprints in my mind while I am reading it. I read slowly to allow its

implications to sink in. A whole world opens up. I understand that everyone has a

mental model to comprehend the reality; that mine is outdated and ill-adapted to the

2Ist century. I discover, word after word, sentence after sentence, how it has

influenced my beliefs and attitudes, my values, and my behaviors. I understand the

connection with what happened to me; that am the result of this way of thinking.

A child of Cartesianism,65 I understand that I am predisposed to segment in

order to comprehend complex reality: everything in my inner representation of the

world is either true or false – with no in-between; there is only one solution to an

issue; every event has a cause; every decision a consequence. I need to know the

past to anticipate the future. Reality is objective; reason and disjunctive logic rule the

world and its succession of causes and consequences. Effort is a key value.

Feelings and emotions only bring confusion. My left brain is all I need: Information,

rational thinking, anticipation enabled me to stay afloat. If they don’t, it is my fault, the

result of a breach. This is the dominant culture among engineers – I am one of them,

dear Reader. It is both mine and my family’s. And suddenly I find it awfully narrow!

I feel excited by this discovery and dismayed at the same time. I have the

impression of having missed the point, of having played the wrong cards. Systemic

thinking offers a way to comprehend the world which takes into account the

complexity of intertwined events and interactions without clear root causes. I have

the impression of stretching my brain: “So, things can be both true and false at the

same time? There is a reality where causes are irrelevant? A reality where the

solution to a problem is the one everyone commits to around the table?”


The impression of my inner world expanding is tangible. Reality is subjective.

Right-brain processing offers more nuances, it is fast, intuitive, holistic, associative,

brilliant. I have a flash of inspiration, a spark of light in the shadow. This is going to

liberate me from the dictatorship of control, anticipation, shame and effort; it will

rehabilitate creativity, intuition and play. I am enthusiastic: “I am sure I have the key,

now. I understand what was wrong.” I am committed to embrace this way of seeing

the world. “The barriers of my prison are wide open; I just need to get out of it.”

***

I remember how relieved I felt to have identified an explanation, a cause of my

burnout. Was the sensation due to the lightening of the unconscious guilt of having

failed to endure the situation at work? Was it because this new concept pointed me

in the direction of a solution? Or did it simply denote the Cartesian grip on my way of

thinking, i.e. if I understood the cause, I would be able to solve the issue?

Retrospectively, I can see how far I fell short of the mark. However, it

triggered a paradigm shift and therefore opened new potentialities. After all, didn’t

Cartesian thinking defend the idea of a separation between body and mind, a body

slave to the intellect? I saw that my inner beliefs were part of the problem and I

needed to open to other points of views to change adaptively.

A model is a mental structure which significantly simplifies reality and allows

us to grasp it in a useful way in pursuit of an objective (de Brabandere, 2012).

Unfortunately, the left-brain hemisphere, which “stores” the reality model, tends to

self-validate itself over time and limit our world view (McGilchrist, 2009). A model

needs to be effective; I needed to change it: Systemic thinking is more adapted to

the complexity of human interactions and to our changing global world. From that

day, I tried to refrain from “buts” and replace them by “ands”.

It was one of those liminal moments of experience, an epiphany; there was a

“before” and a “after”. I started to search for courses to learn more about it. It took

me two months to track down the EMCCC program.


Vignette #3 – Harry Potter (Recollection - March 2015)

I am dreaming. I am a lycanthrope. I have the ability to shapeshift into a bat

and to fly at will. I am a student in a chateau, in France, in a small village in a remote

area. There are many students who, like me, can transform into a bat, and we are all

learning how to do it properly, without harming ourselves or others, finding out how

to protect ourselves and avoid attention. I am conscious of the danger, but willing to

experiment, to be myself. I adore leaving the castle for exercises, in small groups,

flying over the roofs at night, hiding in bell towers when we’re tired and coming back

at sunrise. I feel free, light, and happy to be able to practice my talent, to discover my

capabilities. I feel protected, accepted, among my own people. I am where I belong

and I am learning.

At the end of the week, I leave the chateau for a short break. I am flying

south. I am impatient to come back for the next module. However, the weather turns

bad. A thick fog has invaded the North and there is a snowstorm on my route. It’s too

cold and too dangerous for me to fly. But it is impossible for me to give up; I need to

be with my fellows. I wrack my brains in search of a solution until I find one: I am

going to shapeshift back into a human being and take the train that passes below the

storm. I feel smart because I’ve found what seems to me a creative solution.

***

Dreams, “the royal road to the unconscious” (Freud, 1900), can provide clues

about our main concerns. Reflecting on how the feelings experienced in our dreams

relate to what’s happening in our waking life can shed light on our emotional stuff

and help us to gain insights. We are the experts when it comes to understanding our

own psyche (Kets de Vries, 2014).

I remember how good I felt the entire day afterwards. I associated my dream

with the saga of Harry Potter (Rowling, 1997), an apprentice wizard studying with his

friends at Hogwarts, a castle located in a parallel world hidden from the “muggles”

(i.e. ordinary people). At the time, I was back from the first Insead EMCCC module in


Fontainebleau. Did I feel as odd, maladapted, and lonely as Harry when he arrived at

Hogwarts? Probably. Did flying represent a desire to be free from conditioning?

Presumably. Was the storm a metaphor for my defense mechanisms? Could be.

Was this dream telling me that I had more inner resources than I thought?

I wasn’t sure what to expect at first from EMCCC. The program uses the

clinical approach to explore change psychodynamics.66 The methodology, focused

on experiencing and reflecting upon it, is unusual.67 I knew I had embarked on a

transformational journey without control over the destination. I realized during the

first module that I wasn’t alone in my confusion. I felt I was in the right place,

surrounded by people who seemed just like me. I decided to trust the process and let

it take its course.

Retrospectively, it all makes sense. The “spells” we were taught were related

to self-awareness,68 “night vision”,7 and “third ear listening”. 69 The monsters we

faced were our own shadows and defences. We discovered our “CCRT”,70 and our

“inner theater”,71 spent time in “reflective spaces”,72 practiced self-compassion,73 and

learned to use ourselves as an instrument. All strange concepts for a business

executive like me. Would the learning have taken place if I hadn’t allowed myself to

be disrupted? I experienced intense feelings of fear, shame, anger, and sadness

during this module. Thankfully, it was all contained in our holding space.74

At the time, I was in limbo, between two identities. The systemic way of

thinking discovered a year before had made its mark. Did it open a mental space to

let other realities enter? Would I have closed this space prematurely without

EMCCC? I’d like to think that our safe holding space helped me to contain the

“emotional wilderness” of the neutral zone (Bridges, 2009, p. 8). My mind was free-

floating in a “landscape of mind”, a mental “space in-between”, inhabited by a simple

witnessing presence, an “observing self. This “holding environment encompassing

the opposites” offered a transitional space which became a developmental resource

(Konopka & Van Beers, 2014, pp. 195-197).75


Vignette #4 – A High-performing Hedgehog (Recollection - March 2016)

I am absorbed in reading. I have dug into numerous research articles in

search of a thesis topic and my attention has been caught by the correlation between

personality characteristics and burnout. I feel cornered. “I am indeed anxious and

negatively biased; I can’t help it.” “I often feel helpless.” It seems to be so intrinsically

part of me that now I feel hopeless too. “I am extravert, sociable, intellectually

curious, and open to new experience; it didn’t protect me!” “How am I going to

change the part of my character which allowed burnout to take hold?”

I connect to my own experience to guide me in my reading. From burnout, I

move to stress coping mechanisms, hoping to find something to help me. And

suddenly, there is this article from Sweden: “Performance-based self-esteem. A

driving force in burnout processes and its assessment” (Hallsten et al., 2005). I’ve

never read so fast. “That’s it! That’s me. This is why I burned out.” It’s crystal clear to

me that it fits with both my personality and my experience. Like in an animated

puzzle, the pieces all fit together. I feel so grateful to these researchers, so relieved

to feel understood. “If this problem is known, someone must have found a

treatment”. I decide to dig into self-esteem and attachment patterns. I can’t stop until

I fully grasp the mechanism of identity threat.

***

I had already recognized, thanks to our EMCCC work, that the blueprint

created by my early caregivers’ interactions led to attachment insecurity. However, I

never made the connection with burnout until that day. Like Schopenhauer’s

hedgehogs (Kets de Vries, 2013), I like to be close to others but I am also afraid of

getting pricked. Like the fearful-avoidant hedgehog, the one who scores high both on

anxiety and avoidance dimensions, I am afraid of being hurt, dislike depending on

anyone, I find it difficult to give complete trust and am uncomfortable with intimacy.

Conversely, I feel able and willing to interact and share thoughts and feelings with

others, I feel energized when truly connecting, I usually experience others as


enjoyable and stimulating, and I have formed deep personal relationships over the

years.

The result is an ambivalent picture, where I find myself continuously struggling

with the appropriate distance, back and forth between authentic,

fulfilling connections which bring me emotional reward, and

isolation which brings me safety. The analogy with a children’s

game called jokari comes to mind, when the player repeatedly hits

a ball attached by an elastic band to a base and therefore always

comes back to be hit away again. I find relating to others

challenging.

My self-esteem used to be primarily contingent on performance: I needed to

feel useful in order to feel worthwhile. I was a workaholic, a perfectionist, attuned to

others’ moods. I tended to see the world with a negative bias, usually anticipating

and planning for the worst and relying solely on myself to sort out problems. My self-

confidence was as good as my professional achievements and my ability to hang on.

This performance-based contingency of self-worth made me appraise the

situation at work, at the end of 2013, as awfully stressful; and, beyond

consciousness, as endangering my self-worth. I remember having used the whole

range of coping strategies available to me, from positive reinterpretation and working

harder at the outset, to networking to anticipate the course of events and seeking

emotional support later on, i.e. a mix of seemingly active coping and emotion-coping

strategies. Despite being an extravert, my negative model of others didn’t allow me

to rely on social support, either in my private or business life.

When the situation evolved beyond my control, I started to blame myself for

not being good enough, I denied I had a choice, felt helpless, and hung on to the

idea that my value would be recognized after all. I felt trapped and isolated. I

ruminated, failed to take the appropriate distance, became increasingly anxious, and

worked even harder, which depleted gradually my resources. After a couple of

months in these conditions, I ended up exhausted, mentally, physically and

emotionally. My previous self-confidence and self-efficacy could not survive the

plummeting of my self-esteem. Burnout caught up with me.

Downloaded from http://fr.jokaripedia.wikia.com/wiki/Jokari


Vignette #5 – The Unexpected Guest (8th April 2016)

Dear Reader, you’ll find the narrative of the Unexpected Guest in the

prologue, page 7-9.

Voice 1: Father-in-my-mind

Voice 2: Super-me

Voice 3: The unexpected guest

***

In the “society of the mind” (Hermans, 2014), Super-me is a personal I-

position in the internal domain of self, i.e. “a semi-permanent way of being that a

person may inhabit”. Super-me represents a compliant insecure overachiever (Kets

de Vries, 2005), who emerges notably in working conditions. It used to be my way of

being at work, i.e. loyal, dedicated and trustworthy. Super-me has drive, ownership,

and a high level of self-imposed standards. She delivers more than expected but

never feels secure. She has a compelling need to prove herself as her self-esteem is

contingent on external validation. She is a workaholic and anxiety drives her

behavior. Unconsciously, she sets herself up for abuse.

Father-in-my-mind is an I-position in the external domain of the self, where

significant others are placed. It is an autonomous self-subject with a voice and an

opinion, whose meaning derives from both my actual father and associated

emotions. His approval is contingent upon my performance and he is never satisfied.

Did Super-me develop in my childhood as a response to my father’s conditional love

and high expectations? Super-me and Father-in-my-mind form a coalition with a rigid

superego quality and distress-related dialogues: Super-me is dependent on Father-

in-my-mind for validation; he takes advantage of it.

One hypothesis is that this coalition is a form of self-defence, originated in

childhood, which manages attachment anxiety and maintains self-esteem. The

coalition preserved performance-based self-esteem at all costs, but became ill-

adapted and dysfunctional over time as it inhibited healthy dialogues involving other


I-positions when physical and working conditions changed. Others couldn’t be heard,

which hampered adaptation.

The multiplicity of the self is subjected to decentering movements – leading to

crisis and fragmentation, and also to opportunities to explore the more remote areas

of the self – and centering movements, which facilitates coherence, continuity and

unity. These should alternate with each other and are necessary to adapt (Hermans,

2014).

Did the unexpected guest function as a promoter I-position? It is distinct from

the voice of my psychotherapist, an “external helper”, which became internalized as

an external I-position. Could both well-equipped Promoter and Therapist-in-my-mind

form a new healthy counterposition to the previous coalition (Hermans, 2014)? It

seemed to function quite well that particular evening. Was all the work done with my

therapist starting to bear fruit? Within the therapeutic alliance, I always felt her

unconditional support, patience, confidence in my inner resources, trust in my

perceptions and intuition: “From external to internal acceptance, or from

unconditional [positive] regard to unconditional [positive] self-regard, to use Rogers’

(1956) terms” (Hermans, 2014, p. 145). With this hypothesis, the unexpected guest

is a newborn, from a seed planted by the Therapist-in-my-mind. According to

dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2014), promoters have the potential to stimulate and

nurture new healthier positions, fostering change in the dynamic of the self. Is it

sufficient to change behavior? What are the new I-positions I can rely on to go back

to work without falling into the same trap as before?

From a metaposition, I could observe and reflect on the event’s significance. It

was an innovative moment, i.e. an exception to the dominant self-narrative which

had progressed to the construction of alternative ones. A dialogical space – a stretch

in the space of the self – had emerged. “Dialogicality promotes identity

transformation” (Batory, 2014, p. 368). Had my self become more dialogical than

before? Would this enable a reorganization of my self, with a broader variety of I-

positions generating new creative interchanges?


Vignette #6 – The Ugly Duckling (13th June 2016)

A modest meeting room full of people of all ages – children, parents, grand-

parents – all coming to an information session of the giftedness association

douance.be.76 Some participants have come alone and are looking around

anxiously. I am sitting in a corner, close to the door, ready to escape. I am not quite

sure what I am doing here. A friend of mine suggested I attend but I can’t figure out

exactly why I decided to come. It was more of an intuition, the hope of new insight to

understand who I am. I am open to whatever is going to result from the experience.

A man at the front starts to talk. He defines giftedness as a different

functioning of the brain, a different way to feel, think and behave, which may, or may

not, increase information treatment speed and therefore be correlated to a high IQ.77

I am struck by the anecdotes, taken from the day-to-day. Up to then, I thought I was

different in the negative sense of the word, i.e. maladjusted to the social world,

hypersensitive and “too complicated”. “Why do I recognize myself in the description?

… my brain functions all the time … I feel usually urged to do more than one thing at

the same time … Although I am sincerely interested in others, I often cut them short

as soon as I get it … I pick up other’s emotional clues very easily, whereas I feel

clumsy in interpersonal skills … I am regularly able to predict what’s going to

happen.” All my contradictions find a place among these giftedness characteristics. I

am puzzled by the details … “I can’t stand crowds…I cherish authentic connections

... I am impulsive and impatient … I feel compelled to learn new fields continuously”.

I start to feel overwhelmed, almost suffocated by the enormity of the suggestion. I try

to continue to deny the evidence, but there are too many coincidences…. “I am mad

about injustice and in love with science fiction …. I need light, personal space and

connection with nature and animals”.

Suddenly, I give up. I stop fighting against the evidence: I am a gifted adult,

one who has never been diagnosed at school. I feel breathless and inhale carefully,

not to disrupt the fragility of the moment, as if the insight could vanish. I don’t dare to

face the implications of my discovery and I leave the room silently, with a blank look,

without trying to connect with anyone.


So far, I never invested time to dig into the subject. I was a compliant pupil at

school and a bright student at university. The problems came later, they sneaked up.

I was in the world, continuously battling to conform and to belong, thinking that I was

disabled, maladjusted. I knew I was intelligent; I preferred to think that I was a

“standard” clever person. I never made the link with emotion intensity and social

relationship management. I remember a colleague, 25 years ago, who suggested

that I take the IQ test of Mensa,78 but I never saw the point. I thought I could live my

life without knowing. As a result, I spent it trying to morph into whatever others

wanted me to be in order to belong, wondering why I couldn’t find my place,

relentlessly striving. But my dream of feeling like everyone else never came true; I

always felt different – until the dots connected.

In the following weeks, my self-esteem took a giant leap. The speaker had

tried to convince us that the feeling of belonging to a community of like-minded

people, i.e. gifted people, would feed our deficient self-esteem. I thought that was too

good to be true, but amazingly, it did. My self-esteem improved dramatically after

that meeting “as if by magic”. I felt relieved, lighter; a weight was lifted from my

shoulders. It wasn’t my fault, a disability, a lack of skill, a deficient cognitive pattern,

a failure. There was nothing wrong with me. If my behaviors were maladapted to the

majority, there was a reason for it. The new insight made huge sense to me and

explained many things. The shame was gone. I felt that a big hole inside of me had

been filled. I was part of, I belonged, I was “enough”, as Brene Brown (2013, p. 25)

would have said. I felt joy. I became real.

I attended the next gifted adult workshop organized by the association. Fifteen

gifted people gathered together for three hours to discuss. I was surprised how

similar our challenges, questions and issues were. Burnout experiences weren’t rare

in the room. I felt on the same wavelength during the whole evening.

***

Andersen’s tale of the Ugly Duckling (Andersen, 1843) is about a little bird

trying without success to fit into a duck community, lonely and unhappy, only to

discover that he is actually a beautiful swan. Once he came to know his nature, he


could belong to a community which recognized him for what he was, and could live a

fulfilling life without having to hide.

Multiple approaches have linked perceived social inclusion and self-esteem,

such as sociometer theory (Leary, 2005) which sees self-esteem as a gauge of

belonging prospects, and the theory of human motivation (Maslow, 1943) whereby

belonging takes precedence over self-esteem and self-actualization.79 Both have

linked the strengthening of social bonds with positive emotions.

The change mechanism at play this time was radically different from the

dialogical self. It relied on the affective processes of identity construction, a separate

domain of identity functioning. Belonging is one of the six motives of identity

construction, has a functional connection with the self-esteem motive, and is

especially tied to positive affect (Batory, 2014; Vignoles et al., 2006).

Indeed, the belonging feeling immediately positively affected my cognitive

biases, my well-being, and my interpersonal relations. Why hadn’t I investigated it

before? Perhaps, the insight was prevented from entering into consciousness by

defense mechanisms. Being gifted meant being different and that was threatening,

especially for someone already struggling with insecure attachment. So why was it

allowed entry then? Could it be due to newly-formed containment capabilities, thanks

to others’ acceptance of who I was, which I experienced both in our EMCCC holding

space and with my therapist?

Feelings rely on spontaneous unconscious emotional processes, using the

right hemisphere subcortical route, which isn’t accessible by the explicit conscious

cognitive left brain (Schore, 2014). This might explain this impression of a magic

process.

Today, I feel a bond with other gifted people but no need to attend the

workshops. I know there are plenty of swans around me I can speak to, whether they

recognize themselves as swans or not. I can also enjoy time with the ducks I like

without feeling weird. I had to abandon the idea of being like them, though: I

understand why I felt different; I will never be a duck. I needed to feel belonging and

acceptance to be able to accept myself.


Vignette #7 – Alienated from Myself (20th June 2016)

It is cold and raining. Monday afternoon. I am home. The lights are on

because there is not enough light from outside. I tried to work on my thesis this

morning, felt agitated, went to buy food and printer cartridges. I am back in front of

my computer to work on my literature search.

Alienated is how I feel right now. A feeling of not being “at home” in my body,

a “living in-between” in a state of “non-existence”, where I feel alienated from my

own feelings and thoughts (Ekstedt & Fagerberg, 2005). I woke up in a bad mood

this morning. I struggled to concentrate and didn’t manage to work efficiently, despite

my efforts. I don’t understand why I feel so negative. I can’t even connect with my

cats, which makes me feel even more hopeless and depressed. I feel empty and

scared of feeling empty.

I re-read the passage of “Lived experiences of the time preceding burnout”

(Ekstedt, & Fagerberg, 2005, p. 65) for the third time “… ‘cutting off’ manifested itself

in neglect of their personal needs, such as regular meals, sleep, physical training,

social activities and time for recovery and rest. [ ] and neglect of basic human needs

gradually led to physical and mental ill health”. I feel drained. “That’s it. I’ve

neglected my essential needs.” I’d had no physical exercise for weeks. Yesterday, I’d

overruled my physical signals in order to progress…long working hours without a

break.

“Where are you, my Promoter? Did Father-in-my-mind win over Super-me to

his argument this time?” I summon all the I-positions in the minisociety of my mind in

order to resume the dialogue but – here is the thing – nobody replies. It is a strange

phenomenon to experience in mindfulness, an experience of silence and emptiness.

None of my I’s show up.

***

As suggested by my psychotherapist – and it used to be quite effective – I

tried to identify the triggering factor in order to bring my emotions to the surface and


process them. But I couldn’t. According to Hermans (2014), the self can fragment

when a person enters a challenging situation. Is it what I felt? Was there an identity

confusion, a disruption in the coherence and unity of my self – between my new

emerging self and my former self? Obviously, I didn’t take a metaposition on time.80

Was it too late for dialogue? In order to get out of fragmentation, I had to stop

struggling, let go, and accept the situation, which would have allowed me to

reconcile with myself. But I couldn’t.

According to Ekstedt & Fagerberg (2005, p.65), what I needed most was

“someone who stayed in the midst of the suffering, mediating a feeling of being

accepted as a valuable individual, without feeling threatened”. But people in burnout

tend to cut off from everything that interferes with their struggle, which prompts social

withdrawal. I didn’t call anyone.

Cutting off also manifested itself in cutting off emotions and inner

communication, which prevented me feeling anything at all – pain, happiness,

empathy. Life is then experienced as living “in between”, isolated from oneself and

from others (Ekstedt & Fagerberg, 2005). I couldn’t even be present for consolation

from my cats.


Vignette #8 – Exhausted (22nd June 2016)

Wednesday afternoon, two days later. The weather has slightly improved. Sun

appears from time to time. It is warm, muggy. I am sitting in front of my coach, listing

all my symptoms in the hope he’ll help me to make sense of it. “…. negative affect,

struggle to concentrate, anxiety, agitated mind, difficulty to connect, compulsion to

eat sugar, difficulty to fall asleep, social withdrawal….”. I’ve tried to find a trigger

without success for the last two days. He has taken notes and now presents a list of

symptoms. I can recognize myself in it. “Damn! This is the list of burnout symptoms”.

My first impressions are (they followed one another so fast that it is impossible

to know which was first) disbelief – “Isn’t it supposed to be over?”, relief – “Finally

someone understand my problem.”, shame – “Oh, no, I did it again!”, guilt –

“Obviously, I didn’t manage to change behaviors.”, denial – “It can’t be that bad!”

The reality is clear: I have managed to exhaust myself even before going back

to work! I am listening to my coach’s explanations: he is talking about the overflow of

emotional stimuli which has cut off the route to the high cortical areas, i.e. the

thinking part of the brain, and activated the amygdala in the limbic system, which

activate fear circuits (Wilkinson, 2004). I am reminded of the necessity to maintain

equilibrium between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems, i.e.

rest and action.81 I am happy to focus on intellectual explanations which divert me

from the chaos of voices in my head. Now they are all shouting at the same time: it is

not a dialogue but a trial taking place in the minisociety of my mind. I feel tearful, like

a culprit: “Why didn’t I manage to maintain this equilibrium he is talking about?”

My coach explains to me how he is personally dealing with it. I am relieved

that at least someone has found a way. While listening to him, my brain functions at

full speed. “I am actually happy when I work on my thesis; I feel intellectually excited,

boosted with adrenaline.” I have to admit that I am not really willing to change activity

once I am writing. When I force myself to take a break, I end up absorbed in

television series, which prevent me from reflecting, instead of recharging my


batteries with fulfilling activities. “What is it that I am trying to avoid – the awareness

that my life is meaningless?”

Now I feel guilty: I did stop running and exercising a couple of weeks ago due

to my ankle sprain, but I have also stopped walking and getting fresh air, and have

postponed meeting friends in order to “save time”. I can hear Super-me saying “I

knew I needed to monitor this; I failed to deliver”. Or was it Father-in-my-mind

reviving with a “You’re hopeless”?

My coach has to remind me: “Don’t be too harsh on yourself; you’re doing

meditation every day and you did set up breaks. Many gifted people are

compulsively driven to periods of excitement which leave them exhausted. To avoid

exhaustion, you need to accept to restrain yourself.” The reference to gifted people

makes me feel instantly better; my self-esteem makes a sudden leap. My exhaustion

isn’t shameful anymore but a norm for people like me, which I have to learn to deal

with. I remember that I was able to spend time with my friends without feeling

emotionally exhausted last week, and that it felt promising. This thought further

bumps up my self-esteem. “It’s going to be OK. I’ll improve on my coping

mechanisms and my coach will help me to stay the course.”

Back in my car to return home, my inner voices are having a healthy dialogue

again. I feel a bit sheepish, like a student whose mentor had to get him back on the

straight and narrow. My mood isn’t that bad anymore. My cortex is operational again.

The sun is shining. I decide to take the rest of the day off.

***

Strange as it might seem, it was difficult for me to think rationally about my

emotional state. Retrospectively, I can empathize with the intensity of my emotions.

How much suffering I went through during such days! When feelings were

overwhelming, they weren’t accessible to cognition, which generated a sense of

helplessness. I often experienced such setbacks in the neutral zone; it wasn’t a

linear journey. Changing behaviors isn’t easy and the opposing forces are powerful.

The most difficult was to contain despair and impatience. Coaching was essential.


The belonging feeling positively impacted my self-esteem, which in turn positively

impacted my mood. In the end, isn’t it compassion for myself that I need most?

In the days that followed, I decided to slow down. I resumed running – my

ankle responded well and I was happy to be surrounded by trees and water. I read

comic books and watched films. However, the more I tried to entertain myself, the

more meaninglessness haunted me. I did meditation and I drank wine, peacefully

sitting on my terrace and looking at my garden, but didn’t manage to numb the

feeling.

Does the problem really reside in the periods of excitement or periods of rest?

The more I worked, the less I invested in my life beyond work, the more I felt leisure

was meaningless, the more I felt compelled to work. I have to reverse the snowball

effect, discover what I like and what makes sense to me, and invest time in it. Is the

emergence of the meaning topic a sign of an attenuation of my compulsive need for

self-esteem validation?


Vignette #9 – Module 8 (12th July 2016)

I am back home after the last module of our EMCCC 18-month journey. I feel

in an unusual mood – lighter, joyful. Still in a cloud, in this collective holding space

that we have created together and in which we allow ourselves to be truly ourselves

and to experiment with different behaviors. It has been an incredible module with lots

of contradictory emotions to process, from sadness to joy, through fear.

I remember the anxiety of knowing that it was our last module, the urge to live

it fully. And then, unexpectedly, the second day, I came to the realization that most of

the people had commitments for the evening, either to go out for dinner with their

thesis group, or to finalize the organization of our Olympics event. I was invaded by

an overwhelming feeling of panic. A huge crowd of thoughts were trying to get

heard…... “Why wasn’t I included in any group? Why didn’t I have a thesis group?

Am I the only one not to have one? Will someone care enough about me to be willing

to give me feedback about my thesis?” I wasn’t sure I needed a thesis group; my

feelings were rather coming from the fact that I didn’t belong to any of them, that I

was left out. I was finally invited by two fellows to join them for dinner and I spent a

lovely evening, but the fear of being left out didn’t vanish, or the associated anxiety.

The next day, I asked a few people whether they were in a thesis group.

When one of them answered in a cool manner, “No, I don’t have one, Darling, and I

don’t think I’ll need it,” I experienced a weird feeling. The information, both verbal

and non-verbal, was so much in contradiction with my beliefs that it couldn’t get in to

be processed. It stayed with me, at the door of consciousness, an unresolved

enigma which bothered me like a fly hanging around me.

During morning reflection time, I couldn’t speak at first. I felt so bad, so afraid,

so different. I thought that perhaps I didn’t belong after all, and this made me feel

incredibly sad. Thankfully, I finally managed to express my feelings, as a last resort

to be included. I was hoping for a life-saver to go back on the boat with everyone

else. Shortly after, during the break, a number of people came to comfort me,

hugging me, surrounding me physically with their arms. Some of them shared that


they were also struggling with belonging, either in the breakout groups or in the

whole group.

Suddenly, I had one of those a-ha moments……the insights waiting at the

entrance of my brain started to be processed and I connected the dots. I had never

been alone for dinner, I didn’t want a thesis group, people did care about me, I

wasn’t the only one not in need of a thesis group, I wasn’t the only one struggling

with belonging, and there were people not stressed by being on their own for the

thesis. The conclusion hit me: it was a ghost feeling from the past, an enormous fear

of being left out, of not belonging, which was likely connected to real life-threatening

situations in the early days, but which wasn’t justified by the current situation.

The contrast between my inner perception and reality appeared clearly to me

for the first time: it looked insane. The present perception won the battle over the

past, tearing away the veil which obscured my vision, and the joy of belonging

invaded me. I didn’t need to be part of a thesis group, or to morph into someone else

to belong; I could be as I was and still belong. I felt incredibly lighter. The sun was

shining. It was summer. And I belonged to a wonderful group of people. This feeling

didn’t leave me for the rest of the module. I still have it with me, inside of me,

imprinted in my cell brain. I don’t want this precious gift to disappear. Even the good-

byes were lighter, because I knew I belonged, whatever the physical distance.

Now that I am back home, this joyfulness is still with me and I feel a different

person. I feel that, from now on, happiness is a possibility for me.

***

Joy is a feeling which I rarely experience. In the following weeks upon my

return, I was able to experience it again, in the company of friends. Up to then, each

time I felt belonging and acceptance, it impacted positively my well-being, but I

experienced it as a kind of strange exception. What made a difference this time? Is it

the awareness that I wasn’t the only one to struggle with belonging? Was it the ever-

growing emotional safety of our reflective space? The bear hugs? Or the

accumulation of recent positive relational experiences?


The particularly acute perception of the contrast between my inner beliefs and

what I experienced entered consciousness. Perceiving both, superimposed, even for

a very short while, was insane; one of them had to be erased…it tipped over towards

trust in the perception and sensations which I was experiencing “in the here-and-

now”. I trusted myself and others around me sufficiently to take the – obsolete – risk

of being abandoned: I managed to let go my out-of-date model.

There seems to be no way back. Has the former brain pathway been

overwritten? Did this module change my internal working model of affect regulation?

Is this what earned-secure attachment felt like?


Epilogue (October 2016)

I have worked for two months during which time I have tried hard to apply

what I have learned. I have practiced night vision and self-reflectivity. My inner

transformation was mostly manifested in cognition: It was easier for me to make the

distinction between what belonged to me and what belonged to the work

environment, which is an achievement. However, the most challenging was to resist

the urge to deliver at all cost. I felt very vulnerable not to be fully operational from the

outset. Despite my self-consciousness, I haven’t yet found a way to contain the

anxiety of just being. I have still striven to take ownership, to make an impact, to

“do”. These two months were very stressful and cost me a tremendous amount of

energy.

I have to find a new way of being at work, one which gives me more inner

space to reflect and take the appropriate distance. I must practice activating a new

behavior, more adapted to the work environment – even if it is a dysfunctional one. It

will reinforce my restructured cognition and vice-versa. Encouragingly, there are

more diverse I-positions in the mini-society of my mind and it doesn’t seem that any

of them is engaged in a coalition. I regularly have healthy debates with them.

The main resistance to change seem to reside in my belonging defense

mechanism. I didn’t feel the pressure to conform that much. I paid attention to

staying authentic and made less concessions to my ego than before. However, I

suspect that it made the unconscious pressure to deliver even stronger.

What does that mean regarding resilience? I don’t know yet. I progressively

feel more whole, safer inside and less dependent on others’ opinions. However,

there is still resistance to overcome. This isn’t the end of the journey. There’s still

some way to go.


Findings and Discussion

Dear Reader, you’ve now read my story. I have to say that while I was

searching for pebble stones the path evolved differently from what I expected. In

writing autoethnographically, I have re-experienced the past and rediscovered the

meaning of past events (Denzin, 2015). I originally used the metaphor of Hansel’s

pebble-stones to trace the origin of the unexpected guest, expecting that they would

help me find a way through the chaotic neutral zone. However, it wasn’t a cognitive

journey; the pebble-stones were traces of the long path I have taken rather than an

indication of the direction to follow. Affective processing precedes cognition.

Here is how I summarize my journey. In vignette #1, I related the ending of

the “ending”, i.e. the first phase of Bridge’s (2009) transition process. My acceptance

was a preliminary condition to kick off the change journey and let myself sink into the

limbo of the neutral zone.

In vignette #2, I explained how the change of paradigm that I made liberated

me from the rigidity of Cartesian thinking. It allowed me to open my mind to night

vision.

In vignette #3, my dream shed some light on our EMCCC safe holding space.

It proved to be effective at containing my anxiety at being in a no-man’s-land

between two identities and at maintaining the reflective mental space that I needed

to develop.

In vignette #4, I discovered how my personal history set me up to experience

identity threat at work. The awareness of the connection between performance-

based contingent self-esteem and burnout allowed me to frame the challenge I had

to overcome.

In vignette #5, I described the dominant coalition which maintained my self-

esteem at all costs, but prevented healthy dialogical activity to take place and, in

turn, adaptation to new external conditions. To my surprise, the unexpected guest

who showed up was more a consequence of change in nonconscious affective


processes than a change promoter in itself. Although these revealed an evolution

towards more acceptance and unconditional positive self-regard, the cognitive

processes made no impact on resolving the identity threat.

In vignette #6, I told how I resolved the enigma of why I felt different and how

the feeling of belonging, like waving a magic wand, impacted my emotions,

interpersonal relations, and self-esteem. The unconscious emotional processing of

the experience enabled me to accept a side of me that I had rejected until then.

In vignette #7, I depicted fragmentation and how the cut-off from emotions

and dialogical activity sustained painful conditions.

In vignette #8, I illustrated how belonging and acceptance helped me to

resume dialogical activity, which I increasingly conceptualize as an indicator of

mental health. Although exhaustion might be considered a setback in my non-linear

change journey, the unexpected emergence of the meaning topic could be seen as

an attenuation sign of my compulsion to need external validation.

In vignette #9, emotional safety and positive interactions allowed me to put

the feeling of being left out back into context, which highlighted the discrepancy

between my inner beliefs and what I experienced. Incredibly, I seem to have finally

managed to overcome my outdated internal working models of affect regulation,

enabling joy and happiness to take their rightful place.

From a metaposition, it has been a fascinating journey; from the perspective

of an insider, it was incredibly scary and painful. Nevertheless, it was worth of being

lived as it was an opportunity for renewal. Maladaptive “automatic” behaviors and

feelings, driven by out-of-date beliefs and attitudes – often reminiscences from

childhood – poison the present. They were once suited to our situation and protected

us from risks incurred at the time, i.e. a life-and-death situation. Mine were related to

the fear of being left out. I needed to address the issue in order to eradicate the

approval-contingent behavior activated by threats to a sense of belonging.

As my affect regulation patterns were imprinted in my right brain, they were

beyond consciousness and resistant to change solely via cognitive methods. I have


been able to revisit my childhood mental representations as a result of positive

repeated experiences with sensitive and responsive significant others, whether

coach, therapist, gifted people or fellow EMCCC participants. In these emotionally

safe holding spaces, I trusted myself and others enough to dare to change those

internal representations of my self and of others, which until then had constituted a

defense arising from unsecure attachment. I believe that I have progressed towards

earned secure attachment, starting to see myself as lovable, deserving of care, and

able to master my environment.

“This evolution of internal working models towards security could be

considered a form of resilience” (Zaccagnino et al., 2014, p. 278). I have reinforced

protective factors, i.e. self-esteem, positive affect, feeling of self-efficacy, and trust in

the network of people I can count on. Of course, the ultimate indicator of resilience

will be my behavior in the face of stress (Schore, 2002). However, there were many

cues indicating that a change had already taken place, such as the unexpected

guest and the emergence of an alternative narrative to the dominant coalition, the

long-forgotten feeling of joy that I was able to experience, as well as the emergence

of the meaning desideratum. I feel more often that “I am enough” (Brown, 2013)

without the compulsion to act usefully or to meet others’ expectations.

I believe there were many transformation enablers. Some belong to me, such

as the courage to face reality and to be vulnerable, a genuine curiosity about

different paradigms, and the belief that the power to change was in my hands. Other

enabling capabilities were acquired along the way, such as self-awareness,

reflectivity, containment, night vision, mindfulness, observing ego, and compassion.

Other enablers were within reach, such as emotionally safe holding spaces, support

from – and fulfilling interactions with – sensitive and caring people.

Because our affect regulation patterns make us who we are, changing them

implies an identity transformation. The journey did transform me, although much

remains to be done. I am in what Bridges (2009, p. 5) calls the “new beginning”

phase, where I experience a “new energy” and search for a “new sense of purpose”.

Meaning is likely to be a hot topic in the coming months and years.


This study also illustrates that burnout is an opportunity to undertake

individuation. Innate personality elements, components of the immature psyche, and

life experiences, all become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole. I feel

more authentic and more serene in my relations with myself and others. This isn’t

over – individuation is a never-ending journey – but I am happy to be on the way.

Dear Reader, it was meaningful for me to write this thesis. Nurturing an

observing ego was a very useful exercise for me, as for anyone who embarks on a

process of strengthening their mental health.82 How was it for you to read it? In

telling my story, I had the conviction that “evoking the personal can illuminate the

general” and I hoped it would “resonate in some way for you and perhaps chime with

your own experience” (Douglas & Carless, 2015, p. 85). I suspect that you have your

own opinion and interpretation of the story. If so, then I may have succeeded in

conveying to you my thoughts, feelings, and states of mind along the way, and the

magnitude and depth of the transformation. Don’t hesitate to run with the ball.

For those of you who have suffered, or are still suffering from burnout, I hope I

have managed to enhance your psychological safety and to convince you that

burnout needs to be addressed from a psychodynamic perspective. Facing the

ghosts from your past can be an opportunity to acquire a new sense of self which

includes positive affect, belonging, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, which in turn

generates resilience. Is your survival anxiety higher than your learning anxiety? Do

you feel better knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel? Or do you have a

different experience to share?


Research Limitations

The aim of this research wasn’t to generalize my lived experience and apply it

to resolve other cases of burnout. I am conscious that the root cause of my burnout,

i.e. a compulsion to maintain performance-based contingent self-esteem at all cost,

isn’t necessarily applicable to everyone. So many parameters come into play, such

as one’s attachment security system, life-stage, one’s physical condition, the culture,

and the social-emotional environment, that it is no use trying to give directions.

The period covered by this research encompasses the neutral zone of the

transformation journey. While the new beginning continues to take its course, I can

only guess at the outcome of my personal development work. The return to

professional life, with the stress inherent to the business environment, will reveal

whether I have greater resilience. Similarly, I can neither prove earned secure

attachment, actual change in internal working models, nor individuation, despite the

promising cues that I have highlighted in the findings section.

I am also aware that being Belgian, from a French-speaking culture, I have

inherited my way of thinking from the Enlightenment. It is difficult to disregard that it

might have played differently, both in my lived experience and my interpretation of it,

had I been from a different culture or another part of the world.

The act of observing might have influenced my journey, according to

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (Fosshage, 2002), which stipulates that the very

act of observing particle physics influences that which is observed. Similarly, as a

subjective observer on a transformation journey, I may have filtered my observations

and shaped my perceptions. This is inherent to using autoethnography as a

methodology. “The method embraces uncertainty and emotionality, and it attempts to

make sense of the ways in which our identities [ ] impact what we see, do, and say”

(Holman Jones et al., 2015, p. 35).


Future Research

The ongoing debate about the definition and causes of burnout may be an

indication that the phenomenon has not been studied with the appropriate paradigm.

Can burnout occur with a secure attachment system? My study suggests that there

would be benefits to consider burnout from the psychodynamic perspective.

I would follow Ekstedt and Fagerberg’s (2005) call to qualitative research to

enable deeper understanding of people’s lived experience. There isn’t enough

insight into burnout relapse, or the effectiveness of the personal development work

undertaken over the long term (Maricuţoiu et al., 2016). In the same spirit, I agree

with Lee et al. (2013, p. 275) that further studies could benefit from “using more

experimental designs so that a better examination of the causal links between

factors and resilience could be made”. I suggest further exploration of the lived

experience of the time following burnout.

According to Batory (2014), knowledge about internal dialogical activity is still

limited. It would be relevant to further explore the mechanisms as it can be used as

an indicator of one’s mental health status in order to prevent burnout.

Finally, I’d use new research findings about the development and organization

of the brain to further understand how the paradigm shift in the role of implicit

information-processing impacts psychoanalytic change (Fosshage, 2005).


Endnotes

1 Insead’s Executive Master in Consulting and Coaching for Change.

2 I had just finished “Working Identity” by H. Ibarra (2004).

3 I refer to the Serenity Prayer from the American theologian Reinhold

(Serenity Prayer, n.d.).

4 Perfectionist overachievers are self-doubters who believe that they don’t

deserve their success and that others are much smarter than they are. They are

insecure about their ability to prove themselves (Kets de Vries, 2005).

5 Personas, in Jungian terms, are the ego-invented and ego-protecting

facades that we give to see to others. They reassure them, and ourselves, that we

are part of the group and that we are able and willing to play by the rules. Personas

are virtual interfaces between what we are fundamentally and the outside world and

are necessary to operate in our day-to-day activities. Problems appear when

personas no longer serve the ego but become its master (Mayes, 2005).

6 Hansel and Gretel is a fairytale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers

Grimm and published in 1812 (Hansel and Gretel, n.d.).

7 Night vision refers to the ability to see what lies beyond awareness. It is

based on the premise that (a) rationality is an illusion, (b) much of what happens is

beyond conscious awareness, (c) the past is a lens through which we can

understand the present and shape the future, and (d) we all have blind spots (Kets

de Vries, 2015).

8 The term “serendipity” was first used by H. Walpole in 1754 as the ability to

make discoveries, by accident or sagacity, of things which we are not in quest of.

The original ambiguity enables a rich interpretation of the sense of the word as it

covers the whole discussion about the role of hazard versus reason in discoveries.

Whereas many discoveries are made accidentally (e.g. penicillin and Kepler’s

planet’s elliptic trajectories), it is undeniable that prior insight helps us to see cues

that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The term serendipity embodies the role of the


unconscious and intuition, and its complex entanglement with reason in making

discoveries (Catellin, 2014).

9 Adaptive challenges, unlike technical challenges which have known

solutions that can be implemented by current know-how, can only be addressed

through changes in people’s priorities, beliefs, habits and loyalties (Heifetz, Grashow

& Linsky, 2009). They require transformation of the mindset by advancing to a more

sophisticated stage of mental development (Kegan & Lahey, 2009).

10 “…there is an inherent paradox surrounding learning: Anxiety inhibits

learning, but anxiety is necessary if leaning is going to happen at all.” “Learning

anxiety comes from being afraid to try something new for fear that it will be too

difficult, that we will look stupid in the attempt, or that we will have to part from old

habits that have worked for us in the past.” It creates resistance to change. “None of

us would ever try something new unless we experienced the second form of anxiety,

survival anxiety - the horrible realization that, in order to make it, you’re going to

have to change” (Coutu, 2002, p. 6).

11 The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) assesses three dimensions, i.e.

exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment (Maslach,

Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001).

12 “Burnout occurs outside the human services, for instance, among

managers, entrepreneurs, and white and blue collar workers” (Schaufeli, Leiter &

Maslach, 2008, p. 206).

13 Burnout can occur in all domains “that give people a sense of meaning”

(Bianchi, Truchot, Laurent, Brisson & Schonfelf, 2014, p. 359).

14 Burnout is associated with cardiovascular diseases, musculoskeletal

diseases and immunological problems (European Agency for Safety and Health at

Work, 2009), cognitive impairment, such as memory loss, concentration difficulties,

and problem-solving tasks (Rees, Breen, Cusack & Hegney, 2015), as well as with

various self-reported personal dysfunction. It is assumed to precipitate negative

effects in terms of mental health, such as anxiety, depression, drops in self-esteem,


insomnia, and increased use of alcohol and drugs (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter,

1996). Burnout has negative spillover and crossover effects on marital satisfaction

and family-to-work conflicts (Burke & Greenglass, 2001; Ferguson, 2012).

15 The burnout phenomenon expansion has kept pace with economic

development and is spread all over the world (Schaufeli, Leiter & Maslach, 2008).

16 Job demands include workload, time pressure, the presence of emotionally

demanding interactions and work-family inter-role conflicts. Job resources include

social support from co-workers and supervisors, performance feedback and rewards

and control over one’s job. The organizational and management environment,

including hierarchies, operating rules, resources, and space distribution, can have a

deep and persistent impact. In addition to work overload, lack of control and

insufficient reward, breakdown of community, absence of fairness and value conflict

are primary correlates of burnout (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001; Maslach, Leiter

& Jackson, 2012; Schaufeli, Bakker & Van Rhenen, 2009; Schaufeli & Greenglas,

2001).

17 Downsizing and outsourcing, the greater need for flexibility in terms of both

function and skills, increasing use of temporary contracts, increased job insecurity,

higher workloads and pressure, and poor work-life balance have affected

employment conditions (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2009;

Schaufeli & Greenglass, 2001). Since employment is not only the means of financial

viability, but also defines individuals’ identity, job loss or even the threat of it, can be

psychologically devastating (Dekker and Schaufeli, 1995).

18 Personality can be described using five basic factors, the “Big Five”. They

are (a) extraversion versus introversion, (b) agreeableness versus hostility, (c)

conscientiousness versus lack of conscientiousness, (d) emotional stability versus

neuroticism, and (e) intellect/autonomy or openness to experience versus lack of

intellect/autonomy or closedness to experience (Bakker & Van der Zee, 2006, p. 34).

19 Emotional intelligence is “a set of emotional and social skills that influence

the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social


relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective

and meaningful way” (Stein & Book, 2011, p. 13),

20 “What causes the stress reaction is not the environmental ‘stressor’ alone

but also its significance as appraised by the person who encounters it” (Lazarrus,

1993, p. 13). Subjective evaluation and cognitive processing play a major role in the

individual experience (Zysberg, Orenshtein, Gimmon & Robinson, 2016).

21 The primary appraisal is the initial rapid assessment, which evaluates

whether the situation is threatening, challenging, or benign. Threat, i.e. “the degree

of danger and negativity perceived in the situation” (Johnstone & Feeney, 2015,

413), is the strongest correlate to stress. The secondary appraisal is the individuals’

perception of options and resources available for coping, which can either reduce or

increase the initial threat perception. They include personal resources, i.e.

personality and cognitive characteristics, and environmental resources, such as the

perceived support from the social network (Johnstone & Feeney, 2015).

22 Coping is the process of altering the circumstances, or how we interpret

them, to make them appear more favorable (Li & Nishikawa, 2012).

23 “Denial and distancing are powerful techniques in the control of

psychological stress” (Lazarus, 1993, p. 8). “… people use cognitive distancing by

developing an indifference or cynical attitude when they are exhausted and

discouraged” (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001, p. 403).

24 Psychological resilience refers to the individual’s ability to function or adapt

within the context of significant adversity or a disruptive life event, whether it’s a

perceived threat or an experienced trauma (Masten, 2001).

25 Self-efficacy is the individual’s belief in his personal capabilities, in

particular, his ability to control the events that affect his life. Individuals with high self-

efficacy are less distressed by threats because they believe that they can handle the

situation. They are better at managing emotional states and better at eliciting support

from others (Bandura, 1997; Li & Nishikawa, 2012).


26 Positive affect is the opposite of neuroticism. Neuroticism is a personality

factor which is characterized by “the tendency to experience enduring negative

emotional states such as anxiety, guilt, anger and depression more frequently,

intensely and readily, and for a more enduring period of time” (Rees, Breen, Cusack

& Hegney, 2015, p. 3).

27 “Dispositional mindfulness refers to a trait-like tendency to experience and

express mindful qualities [e.g. acceptance of the ongoing emotional experience, non-

judgmentalness] and behavioral qualities [e.g. acting with awareness]” (Rees, Breen,

Cusack & Hegney, 2015, p. 3). Individuals are able to dis-identify from the content of

consciousness, i.e. one’s thoughts, to free up from automatic thoughts, to perceive

the experience with greater clarity and objectivity, to adopt a de-centered

perspective, and to select better informed and self-endorsed behaviors.

28 Attachment avoidance (avoidance of intimacy, unwillingness to trust or

depend on others, reluctance to seek or provide help) is the result of interactions

with distant or rejecting early caregivers (Johnstone & Feeney, 2015).

29 Attachment anxiety (fear of rejection, excessive reassurance seeking, a

desire for extreme closeness) is the result of inconsistent responses from early

caregivers (Johnstone & Feeney, 2015).

30 Contingent self-esteem refers to relying on external source to confirm one’s

perceived self-worth (Johnson & Blom, 2007).

31 Performance-based self-esteem refers to individuals who are convinced

that successful accomplishment, status and perfection define their self-worth.

Relation-based self-esteem refers to individuals who need to be loved and approved

and seek relentlessly reassurance of attachment in order to feel worthwhile (Johnson

& Blom, 2007).

32 An event threatens identity if it undermines feelings of self-esteem, efficacy,

continuity, distinctiveness, belonging, or meaning (Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi,

Golledge & Scabini, 2006).


33 Whereas high motivation is not a vulnerability per se, it can, however, be a

sign of a need to boost self-esteem, especially if it comes with signs of tension,

concern and anxiety (Hallsten, Josephson & Torgén, 2005).

34 Helping people identify where they have invested their self-esteem and how

much it costs to their relationships, autonomy, and ability to accomplish their goals is

a crucial step. Positive solutions to getting out of this circle are finding new self-

esteem domains, changing the domain conditions, or changing the contingency

beliefs (Hallsten, Josephson & Torgén, 2005).

35 Whereas the term “Identity” is often used interchangeably with the term

“self”, it refers to “the highest level of cognitive representations of oneself”. Such a

self-system implies a dynamic and multifaceted view of identity (Batory, 2014).

“Identity is located on the level of the subjective psychological experience, rather

than referring to an objective ‘essence’” (Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge &

Scabini, 2006).

36 People are motivated to maintain and or enhance feelings of self-esteem

(i.e. positive conception of oneself), self-efficacy (i.e. feelings of competence and

control), continuity (i.e. a sense of continuity across time and situation),

distinctiveness (i.e. a sense of differentiation from others), belonging (i.e. feelings of

closeness to, or acceptance by, other people), and meaning (i.e. significance or

purpose in one’s own existence) within their identities. The six motives of identity

construction affect cognitive biases, psychological and physical well-being and

interpersonal and intergroup relations. “Consciously or otherwise, people strive to

maximize satisfaction and minimize frustration of these motives” (Vignoles, Regalia,

Manzi, Golledge & Scabini, 2006, p. 309).

37 The more people perceive an element of identity as providing feelings of

self-esteem, the more they consider it as central to their identity (cognitive

dimension), the more they feel happy about it (affective dimension) and the more

they emphasize it in their everyday actions (behavioral dimension) (Vignoles,

Regalia, Manzi, Golledge & Scabini, 2006).


38 Cognitive processes (i.e. identity definition/ perceived centrality of identity

element) and behavioral processes (i.e. identity enactment, which is conceived as

presenting certain identity elements in everyday activities) are mutually reinforcing

each other’s. Affective processes refer to positive affect connected with identity

elements (Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge & Scabini, 2006).

39 Motives for self-esteem and self-efficacy, and, to a lesser extent, for

continuity, and meaning, have an impact on positive affect, i.e. people’s happiness

(Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge & Scabini, 2006). There is a functional

connection between belonging and self-esteem motives (Batory, 2014).

40 “[I] is both multiple and unifying” (Hermans, 2014, p. 155). The self is

multiple, heterogenic and flexible as reflected by the many theories which have

attempted to conceptualize it over the years (ego-id-superego, identity elements, ego

states, internal objects, parent-child-adult, false versus true self, self-aspects,

emotionally divided self, subselves, subidentities, personas, possible selves,

subpersonalities and many others, including, more recently, I-positions).

41 The self is conceived as open circles: (a) the internal domain of self, in

which personal and social positions are located and (b) the external domain of self,

where significant others are placed. Personal I-positions refer to the ways of beings

that a person may inhabit (e.g. I as overachiever) and, together with social positions

(e.g. I as an engineer), construct our role in society and contribute to our personal

identity. In contrast to traits, I-positions are situation-dependent. As for external I-

positions, they are “others in the self”, both ghosts from the past and new actual

people (e.g. my father, my therapist). They function as a self-subject (opposite to

self-object), who has a voice, is able to agree or disagree and from who we can learn

(Hermans, 2014).

42 Coalitions of I–other positions are systems, which once established and

strengthened within the self-structure, become relatively stable. Whereas there is

ordinarily some degree of variability within the system that opens the door for new

positions and for alternative narratives to develop, dysfunction of the dialogical self


often involves rigid dominance of a maladaptive I–other position that prevents

dialogue (Bell, 2013; Hermans, 2014).

43 Promoter position gives an impetus to the future development of the self. It

“functions like a motor, pushing the machinery of the self into a particular direction at

a horizontal plane” (Hermans, 2014, p. 149).

44 Metaposition “works as a vertically ascending helicopter providing a view of

the landscape from a distance”. A metaposition provides an overarching view so that

several positions can be seen simultaneously. It leads to an evaluation of the

situation and its link with personal history and can play a facilitating role in creating a

dialogical space (Hermans, 2014, p. 149).

45 Innovative moments are “exceptions to a person’s dominant self-narrative”

(i.e. his usual way of understanding and experiencing), which “progresses to the

construction of a new self-narrative”. They “challenge a person’s current framework”

(Hermans, 2014, p. 146).

46 “To develop a multivoiced and dialogical self, a decentering of the self is

required, in the sense of the capacity and the courage to move to different and

opposite sides in the landscape of the self and search in its half-dark and hidden

areas and corners for relevant I-positions, including shadow ones. These

movements receive their justification on the basis of the assumption that one has to

know the different sides of the self, including their contrasts, oppositions and

heterogeneity, to build and develop, via centering movements, a differentiated whole

that is rich and multifaceted enough to give an adequate answer to a diversity of

global and local situations” (Hermans, 2014, p. 150).

47 Dialogical space is a stretch of the space of the self, an “islands of well-

being”, which can be described as “an invisible, in-between arena that has semi-

permeable boundaries with its surroundings” (Hermans, 2014, p. 146).

48 Whereas losing identity aspects most connected with sense of self-esteem

are especially distressing, the dialogical self appears irrelevant for identity threat


experience, despite its crucial role in identity dynamics under usual circumstances

(Batory, 2015).

49 “If children grow up with dominant experiences of separation, distress, fear,

and rage, then they will go down a bad pathologic development pathway, and it’s not

just a bad psychological pathway but a bad neurological pathway…frequent

dysregulated and unrepaired organized and disorganized-disoriented insecure

attachment histories are ‘affectively burnt in’ the infant’s early developing right brain”

(Schore, 2014, p. 390).

50 Research suggests that “unconscious processing of emotional information

is mainly subsumed by a right hemisphere subcortical route, that unconscious

emotional memories are stored in the right hemisphere and that this hemisphere is

centrally involved in maintaining a coherent, continuous, and unified sense of self”

(Schore, 2014, p. 389).

51 Bowlby (1982) believed that the reassessment of nonconscious internal

working models of attachment was a primary goal of any psychotherapy.

52 Transference and countertransference between the patient and his

psychotherapist are bidirectional right-brain-to-right-brain nonverbal communication

(facial expression, voice inflection, sequence and rhythm of words, gesture). This

primary process communication occurs at a level of cueing and response that occurs

too rapidly for verbal transaction and conscious reflection (Schore, 2014).

53 Emotional change is achieved through (a) increasing awareness of

emotions, (b) enhancing emotion regulation, and (c) changing emotion with emotion.

This is opposite to “self-control” form of emotion regulation, advocated by cognitive-

behavioral therapies, which involve higher levels of cognitive executive function to

allow individuals “to change the way they feel by consciously changing the way they

think” (Greenberg & Warwar, 2006).

54 A mindful state enhances “cognitive flexibility” and “self-regulation”, which

facilitates a more balanced appraisal of the threat, which, in turn, offers greater

freedom of choice for selecting less emotion-laden stress responses (Shapiro,


Carlson, Astin & Freedman, 2006). Mindfulness is a protective factor against

neuroticism and the ineffective process of rumination which tends to deal with

negative thoughts. It is negatively correlated to burnout and is an important

characteristic of resilient individuals (Armstrong & Rimes, 2016).

55 It is important for people to understand what the neutral zone is because

otherwise they might be tempted to rush through it or bypass it, because it is

frightening and painful. To escape prematurely would compromise the opportunity to

replace old and maladaptive habits with new ones that are better adapted to the

environment (Bridges, 2009).

56 Protective factors enhance adaptation and include self-efficacy, positive

affect, and self-esteem as well as, to a lesser extent optimism, life satisfaction, and

social support. Risk factors increase the likelihood of maladaptation and include

depression, anxiety and, to a lesser extent, perceived stress, Post-Traumatic Stress

Disorder and negative affect. The more protective factors and the less risk factors

the individual possess, the higher his resilience will be (Lee, Nam, Kim, Kim, Lee &

Lee, 2013).

57 “Resilience buffers the effect of stress, generates positive emotions, [and]

shape a positive perspective of stressful situations” (Li & Nishikawa, 2012, p. 165).

58 The shadow, in Jungian terms, contains the repressed contents that we

don’t want to admit to ourselves, talents, virtues and potentials that we hide from

others as we feel we would put ourselves in emotional or social peril, as well as

certain insufficiently developed functions. Being able to confront the shadow is

important as it offers us new potentialities, i.e. to grow and develop one’s full stature

as a social, intellectual and moral being and help us to become more whole (Mayes,

2005). “Integration of the shadow requires the sacrifice of ego inflation which,

paradoxically, strengthens the ego and equips it better for the task of managing the

emergence of aspects of the self” (Schmidt, 2005, p. 607).

59 As we can only recognize parts of the self, the self is rarely, if ever,

experienced as a unified whole but rather shows itself in the form of sub-

personalities (Schmidt, 2005).


60 A liminal phase of experience is a kind of no-person’s land, on the edge of

what is possible, a “psychological no-man’s land between the old reality and the new

one”, a “neutral zone” (Bridges, 2009, p. 8).

61 Freud stated that the ego can take itself as an object, like any other objects,

can observe itself, and criticize itself. The observing ego is a neutral self-observing

function of the ego, different from the judgmental and criticizing superego, able to

monitor and reflect upon one’s feelings, impulses and thoughts, rather than

impulsively acting them out (Glickauf-Hugues, Wells & Chance, 1996).

62 An epiphany is an experience of sudden and striking realization. It can

apply in any situation in which an enlightening realization allows a problem or

situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective (Epiphany, n.d.).

Denzin used the term for critical biographical experiences which take place in

existential turning point moments. Epiphanies represent a rupture in the structure of

daily life (Denzin, 2015).

63 Reflexivity entails self-conscious introspection, the awareness of the impact

of the autoethnographers’ identity and prior experience on the way his or she is

experiencing and making sense of the subject his is researching (Anderson & Glass-

Coffin, 2015).

64 The Age of Enlightenment is a period in Western intellectual history which

dominated the world of ideas in the 18th century. It positioned reason as the primary

source of knowledge and promoted the scientific method. Figures of the movement

include Descartes, Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau and Kant (Enlightenment,

n.d.).

65 Cartesianism is the philosophy of René Descartes. It is a form of rationalism

because it holds that scientific knowledge can be derived from innate ideas through

deductive reasoning (Cartesianism, n.d.).

66 The term clinical implies that real-life situations are examined. There are

three premises: perception isn’t reality, irrationality is grounded in rationality, and

people are products of their past (Kets de Vries, 2006).


67 Reflecting – unlike thinking - is a mental “wondering and wandering”, a

silent brainstorming similar to daydreaming, a process of non-judgmental inquiry and

non-critical curiosity whose goal is to discover more deeply those concealed and “in-

the-dark” dynamics that silently and secretly influence our decision-making and

relationship-building (Book, 2015).

68 Emotional self-awareness is the ability to recognize your feelings,

differentiate between them, know why you are feeling them and recognize their

impact on others around you (Stein & Book, 2011).

69 Third ear listening is deep listening to meaning, listening to the words and

the nonverbal signals, seeking to understand the speaker and the underlying,

potentially unconscious meanings of what is said, and remains unspoken. It involves

being aware of what is going on in one’s self and how it affects the speaker, using

mentalizing, empathy and intuition while hearing with a free-floating attention and

making sense of transference and counter-transference reactions (van de Loo,

2007).

70 Core conflictual relationship themes (CCRT) are recurring relationship

patterns, rooted in our early experiences with key figures, which we take into

adulthood and which tend to repeat themselves in other contexts, with different

people, even if they have become ineffective or dysfunctional (Kets de Vries &

Cheak, 2014).

71 Our inner theater is “the stage filled with people who have influenced, for

better or worse, our experiences in life” (Kets de Vries & Cheak, 2014, p. 301).

72 Reflective spaces enable people to achieve insightful recognition of the

systemic factors and unconscious psychic realities that are contributing to current

situations (Long, 2013).

73 Over time, replacing self-criticism by self-compassion changes one’s

thoughts, also about other people, towards more kindness and acceptance (Lehman

& van de Loo, 2015).


74 The concept of container comes from the psychoanalytic work of Bion and

refers to the function of the mother whose ability to receive and understand the

emotional states of her baby makes them more bearable. Similarly, a person can

temporarily “contain” our feelings for us (Halton, 1994). Holding spaces contain

people’s feelings of fear, anxiety an insecurity so that they can be examined

productively (Mawson, 1994). In such spaces, people can reflect about their

experiences, integrate them into a comprehensive understanding and interact out of

the defensive position, which brings them into much fuller contact with themselves

and others and gives them access to the full range of their capabilities (Long, 2013).

75 “Landscape of mind” is a concept drawn from the Japanese gardens

tradition and from the ritual mandalas of Buddhism and Hinduism. It offers a

transitional space which can be a developmental resource for the self, “offering unity

as a counterforce to the (opposing) multiplicity” (Konopka & Van Beers, 2014, p.

197).

76 Douance.be is a Belgian association which provides information sessions,

workshops, personal coaching, and social activities for gifted adults and children

(Douance.be, n.d.).

77 There is a lack of consensus on the definition of giftedness. Gifted

individuals aren’t normal on some metric (in statistical term), which can manifest in

unexpected responses to others or from others. They have different lived

experiences from that of their nongifted peers - whether academic, interpersonal, or

intrapersonal. Experience of feeling of differentness from peers has been reported

(Cross & Cross, 2015). Lovecky (1986) attributed these conflicts to five traits, i.e.

divergence, excitability, sensitivity, perceptivity and entelechy.

78 Mensa (Mensa, n.d.) is a non-political association active in more than 40

countries, whose 120000 members have a IQ in the top 2% of the population.

79 Belonging needs are distinct from self-esteem needs. They don’t emerge

until food, hunger, safety, and other basic needs are satisfied, but they take

precedence over self-esteem and self-actualization (Maslow, 1943). “Threats to

people’s sense of belonging have a substantial impact on their feelings of self-


esteem” (Leary, 2005). General strategies for boosting one’s self-esteem don’t

relieve, even temporarily, people’s concerns about their social connections or social

abilities (Knowles, Lucas, Molden, Gardner & Dean, 2010).

80 “A metaposition has three functions: unifying, executive, and liberating. As

unifying, it brings together different and even opposed positions so that their

organization and mutual linkages become clear, and it prevents the self from

becoming fragmented. In its executive function, it creates a basis for decision making

and choosing directions in life that take into consideration a broader array of specific

positions. As liberating, it acts as a stop signal for automatic and habitual behavior

produced by well-established but maladaptive patterns of positions” (Hermans, 2014,

p. 149).

81 The autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating the body's

unconscious actions, such as the heart rate, digestion and respiratory rate. The

parasympathetic system is responsible for stimulation of “rest-and-digest” or “feed

and breed” activities that occur when the body is at rest. Its action is complementary

to that of the sympathetic nervous system, which is the primary mechanism in control

of the fight-or-flight response and the freeze-and-dissociate response (ANS, n.d.).

82 “Like the development of a sense of self and the internalization of a good

enough, comforting other, the development of a strong observing ego can be viewed

as a hallmark of mental health” (Glickauf-Hugues, Wells & Chance, 1996, p. 431).


Appendix

What is burnout?

A Combustion Process

Graham Greene used the term “burnt out” in his 1961 novel, “A Burnt Out

Case”, in which a famous but disillusioned architect feels compelled to turn his back

on life and ends up in a leper colony in Africa. A “burnt out case” was the term used

to name lepers who ceased to be contagious because the leprosy had consumed all

the contaminated flesh. In the novel, it is a metaphor for the combustion process of

what was false and infected in himself. He experienced a catharsis, which enabled

him to get rid of vanity, self-hatred, self-delusion, disgust, and fear (Chabot, 2013).

An Individual Experience

“Job burnout emerged as an important concept in the 1970s and it captured

something very critical about people’s experience with work” (Schaufeli, Leiter &

Maslach, 2008, p. 204). Freudenberger (1975) borrowed the term to describe the

gradual emotional depletion, loss of motivation, and reduced commitment among

volunteers in a healthcare agency that he observed as a consulting psychiatrist

(Schaufeli et al.). Independently and simultaneously, Maslach, a researcher in social

psychology, and her colleagues referred to the burnout syndrome to describe the

emotional exhaustion, the negative feelings and perceptions that human service

workers developed about their patients, and the crises they experienced in

professional competence as a result of the emotional turmoil (Schaufeli et al., 2008).

“Burnout research has its roots in care-giving and service occupations, in

which the core component of the job is the relationship between provider and

recipient”. “From the beginning, burnout was studied not so much as an individual

stress response, but in terms of an individual’s relational transactions in the

workplace”. It “focused attention on the individual’s emotions and on the motives and

values underlying his or her work” (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001, p. 400).


“As a metaphor for the draining of energy, burnout refers to the smothering of

a fire or the extinguishing of a candle. It implies that once a fire was burning but the

fire cannot continue burning brightly unless there are sufficient resources that keep

being replenished. Over time, employees experiencing burnout lose the capacity to

provide the intense contributions that make an impact. If they continue working, the

result is more like smoldering – uneventful and inconsequential – than burning. From

their own perspective or that of others, they accomplish less. In summary, the

metaphor describes the exhaustion of employees’ capacity to maintain an intense

involvement that has a meaningful impact at work“ (Schaufeli et al., 2008, p. 205).

…not Specific to Human Service Functions

“By the late 1980s, researchers and practitioners began to recognize that

burnout occurred outside the human services, for instance, among managers,

entrepreneurs, and white- and blue-collar workers. Thus, the burnout metaphor was

extended from the intense requirements of client service to other work requiring

creativity, problem solving or mentoring” (Schaufeli et al., 2008, p. 206).

…non-Specifically Job-Related

“Chronic, unresolvable stress – the putative cause of burnout – is not limited

to work” (Bianchi, Truchot, Laurent, Brisson & Schonfeld, 2014, p. 357). Burnout

develops as a result of experiences in a variety of contexts, including non-work

situations, traumatic life events, personal life events, and family-related features. It

may also occur among those who do not work, such as young people, unemployed,

early retired people, pensioners, and housewives. It is argued that burnout can occur

in all spheres of life “that give people a sense of meaning”. “Wherever there is an

investment, there can be a defensive disinvestment and an emergence of cynical

attitudes. Wherever an action is produced, a sense of inefficacy can develop,

resulting in a persisting feeling that one is incompetent and unable to cope with the

challenges at hand”. “Virtually anything we do can elicit such feelings in us if we

chronically estimate that we do it wrong” (Bianchi et al., 2014, pp. 358 - 359).


“Burnout becomes more of a cognitive and motivational process than just a

stress process, and work is no longer seen as the exclusive arena for burnout

processes, albeit an important one” (Hallsten, Josephson & Torgén, 2005).

A Complex and Multidimensional Phenomenon

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is the most widely used scale to

measure burnout (Maslach et al., 2001). It is a self-administered questionnaire of 22

items which assess three different aspects of burnout.

The exhaustion subscale represents the individual stress dimension of burnout. It

refers to feelings of being depleted of one’s emotional and physical resources and

includes loss of energy, tiredness, and physical and emotional fatigue. Exhaustion is

a necessary – but not sufficient - criterion for burnout as “it fails to capture the critical

aspects of the relationship people have with their work” (Maslach et al., 2001, p.

403).

The depersonalization subscale represents the interpersonal context dimension of

burnout. It is characterized by emotional detachment and accounts for negative

feelings of cynicism, a lack of empathy, and a distant and callous attitude toward

one’s job, especially the people with whom one interacts when working.

The subscale of personal accomplishment represents the self-evaluation

dimension of burnout and refers to a decline in one's feelings of competence and

successful achievement.

Other measures sometimes used are the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, the

OLBDI scale, the PBQ scale, the IDB scale, the PQLS scale, the Kubo scale, the

SMBM scale (Maricuţoiu, Sava & Butta, 2016).

A Response to Prolonged Stress Caused by an Imbalance between Job-

Demands and Job-Resources

“When an individual continually perceives his or her coping resources as

being unable to meet the demands of a stressor, the individual becomes stressed”

(Lazarus,1993). “Burnout develops when certain job demands are high and when job

resources are limited because such negative working conditions may lead to energy


depletion and undermine worker motivation and learning opportunities respectively”

(Bakker, Demerouti, Taris, Schaufeli & Schreurs, 2003, p. 16).

“Job demands refer to those physical, psychological, social, or organizational

aspects of the job that require sustained physical or psychological effort or skills, and

are therefore associated with certain psychological or physiological costs” (Bakker et

al., 2003, p. 20). They include quantitative job demands, such as workload and time

pressure, and qualitative job demands such as the physical environment, the

presence of emotionally demanding interactions resulting from role conflicts (e.g.

when conflicting demands at the job have to be met), role ambiguity (e.g. when there

is a lack of adequate information to do the job well), and emotion work (e.g. the

requirement to display organizationally desired emotions), and work-famly inter-role

conflicts (Schaufeli, Bakker & Van Rhenen, 2009; Schaufeli & Greenglas, 2001).

Conversely, “job resources refer to those physical, psychological, social, or

organizational aspects of the job that (a) are functional in achieving work goals; (b)

reduce job demands and the associated physiological and psychological costs; or (c)

stimulate personal growth, learning and development” (Bakker et al., 2003, p. 20).

They include social support from co-workers and especially from supervisors,

performance feedback and appropriate rewards for the work people do – financial

rewards, social rewards (i.e. when one’s hard work is recognized and appreciated),

and intrinsic rewards (e.g. pride in doing something of importance and doing it well),

control over one’s job (i.e. individuals have sufficient control over the resources

needed to do their work and sufficient authority to pursue the work in what they

believe is the most effective manner), autonomy, participation in decision making,

and opportunities to learn (Maslach et al., 2001; Schaufeli et al., 2009).

…. within an Organizational Context

The values implicit in organizational processes and structures shape the

emotional and cognitive relationships that people develop with their work. The

organizational and management environment, including hierarchies, operating rules,

resources, and space distribution, “can have a far-reaching and persistent influence,

particularly when it violates basic expectations of fairness and equity” (Maslach et

al., 2001, p. 409). The comprehensive model of the Areas of Worklife Scale includes,


in addition to workload, control, and reward, three additional work-related factors

which affect the health and performance of employees (Maslach et al, 2001):

Community: “People thrive in community and function best when they share

praise, comfort, happiness, and humor with people they like and respect. In addition

to emotional exchange and instrumental assistance, this kind of social support

reaffirms a person’s membership in a group with a shared sense of values” (Maslach

et al., 2001, p. 415).

Fairness: “A serious mismatch between the person and the job occurs when there

is not perceived fairness in the workplace. Fairness communicates respect and

confirms people’s self-worth” (Maslach et al., 2001, p. 415).

Value congruence: Value conflicts arise when people feel constrained by the job

to do things that are unethical or not in accord with their own values. People can also

be caught between conflicting values of the organization (e.g. a discrepancy

between the mission statement and actual practice) (Maslach et al., 2001).

…. within a Broader Social and Economic Environment

“The roots of the burnout concept seem to be embedded within broad social,

economic, and cultural developments that took place in the last quarter of the past

century and signify the rapid and profound transformation from an industrial society

into a service economy” (Schaufeli et al., 2008, p. 204). “The changing world of work

is making increased demands on workers. Downsizing and outsourcing, the greater

need for flexibility in terms of both function and skills, increasing use of temporary

contracts, increased job insecurity, higher workloads and more pressure, and poor

work-life balance are all factors which contribute to work-related stress” (European

Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2009, p. 9).

“This social transformation goes along with psychological pressures that may

translate into burnout” (Schaufeli et al., 2008, p. 204). Since employment is not only

the means of financial viability, but also defines individuals' identities, job loss or

even the threat of it, can be psychologically devastating (Dekker & Schaufeli, 1995).

Breaches in the psychological contract between the employee and its

organization, i.e. “the belief in what the employer is obliged to provide based on


perceived promises of reciprocal exchange” affect employees’ health and

performance. “Now employees are expected to give more in terms of time, effort,

skills, and flexibility, whereas they receive less in terms of career opportunities,

lifetime employment, job security, and so on. Violation of the psychological contract

is likely to produce burnout because it erodes the notion of reciprocity, which is

crucial in maintaining well-being” (Maslach et al., 2001, p. 409).

A Subjective Appraisal of the Situation Moderated by Personality

Although the literature suggests that stressful aspects of the work

environment are more important predictors of burnout than personality, it has to be

acknowledged that the risk of burnout may differ across individuals (Bakker & Van

der Zee, 2006). “The worker’s internal experience of strain is assumed to play a

mediating role between the impact of external stressors and work-related outcomes”

(Maslach & Leiter, 2008, p. 498).

Demographics. The commonly held belief that female employees are more

likely to experience burnout than male employees is not supported by research

findings (Purvanova & Muros, 2010). The European figures show small differences

between men and women’s work-related stress, a statistical peak in middle-age, a

higher prevalence in the education and health sectors, and higher scores for

employees than self-employed workers (European Agency for Safety and Health at

Work, 2009).

The big five personality factors. Findings indicate that individuals who are

higher in neuroticism and lower in extraversion, agreeableness and

conscientiousness are more prone to experience job burnout (Swider & Zimmerman,

2010). Neuroticism and introversion appeared to be the most consistent predictors of

burnout (Bakker & Van der Zee, 2006).

Neuroticism is defined as a tendency to experience negative, distressing emotions

such as anxiety, fear, depressed mood, and helplessness. People tend to set

extremely high goals for themselves and to underestimate their own performance. It

is associated with strong emotional reactions to stressful situations, which drives the


use of ineffective coping strategies (Bakker & Van der Zee, 2006; Costa & McCrae,

1987; Dorn & Matthews, 1992).

Extraversion is characterized by sociability, assertiveness and energy. Extraverts

seek interactions with other people. Their ability to gather social-support and their

tendency to positive reappraisal might counteract burnout (Bakker & Van der Zee,

2006; Dorn & Matthews, 1992).

Agreeableness is characterized by altruism, nurturance, and caring as opposed to

hostility, self-centeredness, and noncompliance (Bakker & Van der Zee, 2006).

Conscientiousness is associated with self-discipline, achievement striving,

dutifulness, and competence (Bakker & Van der Zee, 2006).

The intellect/autonomy factor is associated with a tendency to try to learn

something valuable from tough experiences (Bakker & Van der Zee, 2006).

Perfectionism. Perfectionists set high standards for themselves. Adaptive

perfectionism has been linked with hopefulness and greater levels of satisfaction in

life. On the contrary, maladaptive perfectionists experience intense levels of self-

criticalness when they fall short of achieving their high standards, which connect

them with diminished satisfaction in life. Maladaptive perfectionism has been linked

with heightened levels of perceived stress, the use of unhealthy coping processes

and increased vulnerability to burnout (Moate, Gnilka, West & Bruns, 2016).

Resilience. Psychological resilience refers to the individual’s ability to

function or adapt within the context of significant adversity or a disruptive life event,

whether it’s a perceived threat or an experienced trauma (Masten, 2001). Resilience

leads people to adopt an active coping style (Li & Nishikawa, 2012). It mediates the

relationship between neuroticism, mindfulness, self-efficacy, coping, and

psychological adjustment (Rees et al., 2015).

Emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, i.e. “a set of emotional and

social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and

maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in

an effective and meaningful way” (Stein & Book, 2011, p. 13), may serve as a

personal resource to facilitate processing emotions into effective behavior patterns

(Zysberg, Orenshtein, Gimmon & Robinson, 2016).


An Erosion of Engagement

By coincidence with the emergence of Positive Psychology, Maslach and

Leiter rephrased burnout as an erosion of a positive state of mind, which they

labelled engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2008). Engagement has been defined as “an

energetic state of involvement with personally fulfilling activities that enhance one’s

sense of professional efficacy” (Maslach & Leiter, 2008, p. 498).

“People’s psychological relationship to their job can then be conceptualized as

a continuum between the negative experience of burnout [exhaustion,

depersonalization, and inefficacy] and the positive experience of engagement

[energy, involvement, and efficacy]” (Maslach & Leiter, 2008, p. 498).

A Global Phenomenon with Significant Outcomes

“The exhaustion component of burnout is [ ] predictive of stress-related health

outcomes” (Maslach et al. , 2001, p. 406). Research has proven that stress at work

is associated with cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disease, and

immunological problems (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2009).

Regarding mental health, the link with burnout is more complex. “Burnout is

associated with symptoms of cognitive impairment, such as memory loss,

concentration difficulties, and problem-solving complex tasks” (Rees et al., 2015, p.

2) as well as with various self-reported indexes of personal dysfunction. The

assumption is that “it precipitates negative effects in terms of mental health, such as

anxiety, depression, drops in self-esteem, and so forth” (Maslach et al., 2001, p.

406).

There is also evidence that burnout can be transmitted from the workplace to

the family domain. Burnout outcomes include negative spillover and crossover

effects on marital satisfaction, and family-to-work conflicts (Burke & Greenglass,

2001; Ferguson, 2012).

Even if people suffering from burnout initially pursue the path of duty at all

costs, thereby flirting with their limits, sooner or later an accident or a disease forces

them to stop (Peters & Mesters, 2008). Burnout is correlated with absenteeism,


turnover, turnover intentions, and job performance (Swider & Zimmerman, 2010), not

to mention presenteeism, i.e. the phenomenon of going to work despite being ill,

which can be considered as one of the possible coping strategies to deal with

emotional exhaustion and deeply impact productivity (Baeriswyl, Krause, Elfering &

Berset, 2016). In addition, “people who are experiencing burnout can have a

negative impact on their colleagues, both by causing greater personal conflict and by

disrupting job tasks. Thus, burnout can be ‘contagious’ and perpetuate itself through

informal interactions on the job” (Maslach et al., 2001, p. 406).

The reality of burnout is expensive for society and materializes in the form of

unemployment and additional spending for social security systems. “[In Europe,]

stress is the second most frequently reported work-related health problem, affecting

22% of workers from the EU 27 (in 2005), and the number of people suffering from

stress-related conditions caused or made worse by work is likely to increase [ ]. This

represents a huge cost in terms of both human distress and impaired economic

performance” (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2009, p. 7). In 2002,

the estimated annual cost of work-related stress in the EU15 was € 20 billion

(European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2009). “The American Institute of

Stress reported that stress is a major factor in up to 80% of all work-related injuries

and 40% of workplace turnover [ ]. The Confederation of British Industry reported

stress as the second highest cause of absenteeism among non-manual workers in

the United Kingdom [ ]” (Richardson & Rothstein, 2008, p. 69).

Quantitative studies suggest that burnout is not exclusively a Western

phenomenon. Research on burnout has spread to Asia, the Middle East, Latin

America, Australia and New Zealand, and, since the turn of the century, to Africa,

China, and the Indian subcontinent. “It is interesting to note that, roughly speaking,

the order in which the interest in burnout seems to have spread corresponds with the

economic development of the countries involved” (Schaufeli et al., 2008, p. 210).

A Challenge for Curative and Preventive Interventions

This has generated the development of intervention strategies for treatment

and prevention, targeted at helping the individual to cope with workplace stressors or

modifying the organizational factors that might trigger burnout or prevent


engagement. However, the effectiveness of these interventions are mixed and little is

known about the long-term effects (Maricuţoiu et al., 2016; Maslach et al., 2001).

Changing the individual. “Individual level interventions start from the

assumption that burnout is the result of poor individual adaptation to a workplace that

is difficult (if not impossible) to change” (Maricuţoiu et al., 2016, p. 3). Interventions

target either the employee’s appraisal of stressful situations, or the employee’s ability

to cope with the outcomes.

Interventions based on cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT) are designed to

educate employees about the role of their thoughts and emotions in managing

stressful events, to encourage them to take charge of their negative thoughts,

feelings, and resulting behaviors by changing their cognitions and emotions to more

adaptive ones (cognitive restructuring), and by identifying and practicing more

functional behavioral responses (behavioral activation). These interventions are

intended to change individuals’ appraisal of stressful situations and their responses

to them (Maricuţoiu et al., 2016; Richardson & Rothstein, 2008).

Traditional meditation and relaxation techniques are popular treatment designed

to enable individuals to bring about a physical and mental state which allow them to

experience a deep state of rest, to refocus attention away from the source of stress,

to increase their awareness of the tension in their body and mind, and to reduce

them by “letting go” (Maricuţoiu et al., 2016; Richardson & Rothstein, 2008).

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy interventions teach people to notice

thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, while cultivating an accepting, curious, and

nonjudgmental attitude. Mindfulness help people to notice the occurrence of

processes such as rumination, self-criticism, interpretation biases, avoidance, and

physical tension, and cultivate greater use of alternatives such as self-compassion

and the allowing and acceptance of difficulties. “Practicing a more detached

perspective on thoughts and feelings may help to prevent negative thinking

becoming perseverative and developing into a vicious cycle with low or anxious

mood, hence resulting in decreased emotional sensitivity in highly neurotic

individuals” (Armstrong & Rimes, 2016, p. 289).


Interventions aimed at the development of interpersonal skills (e.g. teambuilding

and assertiveness training) assume that a more positive, interpersonal work climate

would lead to lower levels of burnout (Maricuţoiu et al., 2016).

Interventions focused on the development of work-related hard skills (e.g. time

management and goal setting) assume that employees would improve their handling

of stressful events using their new capabilities (Maricuţoiu et al., 2016).

Other approaches to reducing burnout were exercise programs, electromyogram

biofeedback training, induction of alpha brain-wave activity, and keeping a diary of

the stressful events (Richardson & Rothstein, 2008).

Changing the organization. “Social and organizational conditions are

primary correlates of burnout, particularly in six broad domains of job-person

mismatch: work overload, lack of control, insufficient reward, breakdown of

community, absence of fairness, and value conflict” (Maslach, Leiter & Jackson,

2012, p. 297). Organizational-level interventions aim at lowering the impact of

organizational stressors through organizational change. “[It] leads people to consider

what factors in the workplace are likely to enhance employees’ energy, vigor and

resilience, to promote their involvement and absorption with the work tasks, and to

ensure their dedication and sense of efficacy and success on the job” (Maslach et

al., 2012, p. 297).

Prevention programs might include redesigning jobs, increasing workers’

decision-making authority, or providing coworker support groups (Richardson &

Rothstein, 2008). Some studies have tackled the burnout-reducing effect of

employee mentoring when confronted with adverse working conditions (Van

Emmerik, 2004), the indirect impact of engaging leaders who inspire, strengthen and

connect their followers (Schaufeli, 2015) or the return-to-work process (Freudenberg,

2014).

“Although the potential value of organizational interventions is great, they are

not easy to implement. They are often complex in the level of collaboration that is

necessary and they require a considerable investment of time, effort and money”

(Maslach et al., 2001, p. 420).


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