Burn-Out: The High Cost of High Achievement

What is burn-out? You can get a lot of opinions, including the view (perhaps a semantic argument in some instances) that there is no such thing. In the terms of this book, it is often a condition in which likely-to-succeed persons begin "exhibiting signs of something amiss between themselves and their environment." Clinical psychologist Freudenberger says he has experienced it himself; that what is happening is not just something inside the persons affected. No, suggest the authors, "much had to be attributed to the times we live in, the swift acceleration of change, the depersonalization of neighborhoods, schools, and work situations." In any case, whatever burn-out is or is not, it is a much-discussed subject these days, and physicians may want to examine as many viewpoints as possible. This book, of course, offers one of them.