Burn-out doing business with the stress of others

Fashion Diagnosis Burnout: Many do their business with the sufferings of the afflicted

12/13/2011

With the suffering of burn-out patients, more and more private liaisons, coaches and dubious providers of so-called anti-stress travel are making good business. The victims of these business practices are the patients, because many methods are useless in the opinion of experts.

Burn-out: a ticking time bomb
„Burnout“ becomes a ticking time bomb, according to union IG Metall. More and more workers feel burned out and increasingly complain about mental illness, such as depression. The union therefore calls for appropriate anti-stress regulations in the workplace to curb the spread of fatigue syndrome.

While a few years ago back pain was at the top of the list of the most common health-related workplace outages, today it is burnout syndrome that costs the German economy around EUR 43 billion annually, according to the testing company Dekra. ascending trend.

In the meantime providers of anti-stress coaching, private clinics with so-called wellness offers and many others are making use of this circumstance. As a rule, the offers are heavily overpriced and do not bring the desired recovery effect. Frank Berndt, operator of a burn-out consultancy, explains: „People I look after are often facing collapse. They do not need yoga on La Palma.“

For those affected is not necessarily clear whether they are serious offers. In addition to numerous offers, many tests are available on the Internet in which one's own burn-out risk is queried. This kind of „diagnosis“ is very dubious and helps those affected in the rarest cases on.

Especially private clinics smell a deal
Matthias Burisch, psychology professor, reports on the offers of many private clinics: „Especially private clinics have discovered the topic. It will not hurt if you go there, but probably will not do any good.“ The 67-year-old was one of the first Germans to study burn-out syndrome. He reports that there was the first boom in 1974, but since 2006 „permanently booming“.

What is burnout??
The burnout syndrome is extreme emotional exhaustion. This is accompanied by a greatly limited performance. The trigger can be excessive stress and excessive demands. Those affected feel powerless, tired, „burned out“ and weak and often separate from their environment.

It is important to consult a doctor or trained therapist to rule out other mental illnesses, some of which may be parallel, and to develop a treatment plan. Consequences of an untreated burn-out syndrome can be apathetic, depressive or aggressive behavior as well as decreasing interest and even suicide.

Serious therapies for burnout syndrome
The problem is that until today there is no reliable medical diagnosis, because the symptoms of a burnout are very diffuse. There are also overlaps with therapies for other mental disorders, such as depression, stress, job satisfaction, anxiety disorders or neuroticism. Due to the blurring in the demarcation to other diseases, it is difficult to call specific numbers of those actually affected. According to estimates of health insurance, a quarter to a third of Germans complain about the feeling of being burned out. Whether there is actually a burnout behind it is not always conclusively diagnosable. (Ag)

Read about:
Burnout syndrome becomes a ticking time bomb
Burn out usually affects the committed
Burnout Syndrome: Total Exhaustion
More and more people are affected by burnout syndrome
Underuse makes you ill: The Bore-out syndrome
Burn-out patients conceal their suffering
More and more lost work due to burnout

Image: Gerd Altmann, Pixelio.de