The multiple 'faces' of burnout in clinical psychiatric practice.

Abstract

Objective: Burnout is commonly viewed as having three constituent symptoms forming a definable syndrome. This paper seeks to detail a number of burnout profiles as faced by psychiatrists in clinical practice and which can lead to diagnostic dilemmas.

Conclusions: While those with burnout appear less likely to present to psychiatrists than to other mental health practitioners, there appear to be a number of differing clinical profiles, and so arguing for consideration of a burnout syndrome in the differential diagnosis of some less prototypic clinical presentations.