Digest- V8, I3 Full Issue

11 TPC Digest A lthough researchers define burnout in several different ways, in essence, burnout is a psychological phenomenon associated with job-related stress. For educational professionals, burnout occurs when they are unable to meet their own needs, as well as their students’ needs in a high-pressure environment. When individuals experience burnout, they may face symptoms including negative changes in their attitudes and decision-making; physiological states; mental, emotional, and behavioral health; and occupational motivation. Consequently, individuals experiencing burnout report compromised physical health, increased risk of mental health disorders such as depression and substance abuse, poor job performance, absenteeism, occupational attrition, and low self-esteem. Burnout can also cause symptoms such as fatigue, exhaustion, and insomnia. Professional school counselors are not strangers to burnout. School counselors are susceptible to experiencing feelings of burnout because of increasingly demanding job environments. For instance, the average student-to-counselor ratio is 491-to- 1, whereas the recommended ratio is 250-to-1. In addition, school counselors are at risk for experiencing feelings of burnout with other job responsibilities including paperwork, parent conferences, school-wide testing, and requests from administrators, and other factors such as role ambiguity and limited occupational support. Accordingly, school counselors may experience chronic fatigue, depersonalization, or feelings of hopelessness, and leave their jobs because of the rigidity of school systems and limited support. In fact, counselors experiencing significant feelings of burnout provide reduced quality of service to their clientele because burnout relates to lower productivity, turnover intention, and a lowered level of job commitment. Because of the importance of preventing the burnout phenomenon, the American School Counselor Association’s ethical standards note that school counselors are responsible for maintaining their health both physically and emotionally, and caring for wellness to ensure their effective practice. School counselors have an ethical responsibility to monitor their feelings of burnout and remediate when their feelings potentially influence their ability to provide quality services to their stakeholders. To monitor burnout, counselors need to understand the symptoms of burnout and prevent burnout from happening while maintaining their psychological well-being. The purpose of this article was to review studies investigating the constructs of burnout and occupational stress in professional school counselors. To prevent school counselors from experiencing feelings of burnout, identifying factors relevant to the phenomenon is of importance. Eighteen published research articles fit the inclusion criteria for this review, and the researchers identified external and internal variables relating to school counselor burnout, as well as protective and risk factors. The review identified that school counselors’ higher level of burnout correlates with: (a) providing more non-counseling duties, (b) having larger caseloads, (c) having their school not meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP) status, (d) experiencing a lack of supervision, (e) possessing greater emotion-oriented stress coping scores, (f) having lower numbers of direct counseling activities, and (g) having greater perceived stress scores. In contrast, school counselors scored at lower levels of burnout when they reported receiving supervision; possessing higher task-oriented stress coping strategies; scoring at higher levels of ego development; reporting greater occupational support at their schools; having greater grit scores; and having their schools meet AYP. Nayoung Kim is a doctoral candidate at the University of Central Florida. Glenn W. Lambie, NCC, is a professor of counselor education and an associate dean at the University of Central Florida. Correspondence can be addressed to Nayoung Kim, 12494 University Blvd., Ste. 322, Orlando, FL 32816, nykim@knights.ucf.edu. Burnout and Implications for Professional School Counselors Nayoung Kim, Glenn W. Lambie |