The WHY of Musicians' Burnout
by Kensley Behel, Ph.D. Published October 2022.
Burnout – a term often thrown around to describe emotional exhaustion. Or, to describe a state of being after having fallen out of love with a job, a goal, or life in general. But is that actually what burnout is?
And the answer is… It depends.
There is some disparity between how scholars define burnout. Many, especially those located in Europe, tend to define burnout in one-dimension, emotional exhaustion. However, the gold standard, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, defines burnout as comprised of three factors: high emotional exhaustion, high cynicism, and low personal efficacy.
Burnout is serious among many occupations including education and the medical professions, but there are certain tendencies in music that make musicians especially susceptible to burnout. Among those are job instability, financial struggles, and perfectionism. At the Royal College of Music, one of the premier institutions studying Performing Arts Health and Wellness, they found that the audience (read consumer) is an additional driver towards perfectionism – a known factor contributing to burnout.
For music students, there are many other factors contributing to their burnout. Some of those include:
· Performance anxiety,
· Little patience with musical progress,
· “Lack of recognition by teachers, peers, administration, and parents,” and
· “Lack of coordination in curriculum,”
And then for music educators, class size, lack of administrative support, long and irregular hours can lead to burnout, as well as having a disconnect between what they believe their skill set is and the actual skills required to do their job. I would call the latter imposter syndrome.
We’ve learned a little bit about what causes burnout. But how do you know if you have it?
Unfortunately, and to the surprise of many, there is no official diagnosis to accompany the feelings and symptoms of burnout. In fact, it was only this year that the World Health Organization included burnout in its International Classification of Diseases as a syndrome (a group of symptoms with no explicit cause). Officially they state, “burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
I might argue that this definition is a bit narrow in scope, but nonetheless, it is an important step to recognize seriousness of burnout.
So that leaves us to look at the symptoms.
If you resonate with the world cloud above, you can ask also yourself some critical questions:
1. Do you have a loss of energy?
2. Are you dissatisfied with your work?
3. Do you feel unable to meet your goals?
4. Do you feel unsupported in the workplace?
5. Do you have little motivation for your work?
If you find yourself answering yes to any of these, I encourage you to seek help. While burnout may not be diagnosable, it is often comorbid with depression, anxiety, and other diagnosable conditions. You can speak to your general practitioner or a therapist if you need help!
So, you or someone you know is experiencing burnout, what now? Well, the good news is that there are solutions. The tricky news is, that some of the solutions require the participation of others around us.
When Christina Maslach and her team designed the Maslach Burnout Inventory, they originally created cutoff scores. In effect, you either had burnout or you didn’t. But they realized that there wasn’t diagnostic validity. So, they revamped their method. Now, burnout is understood as five separate profiles. These profiles were designed as a tool to help investigate problems in the workplace. And when you understand the problem, you can more effectively find a solution.
Earlier, I spoke about how burnout required three components, high levels of emotional exhaustion, high levels of cynicism, and low levels of personal efficacy. But what if you have only one factor? That’s how the five profiles play out.
High Emotional Exhaustion only = overextended
High Cynicism only = disengaged
Low Personal Efficacy Only = Ineffective
Addressing reduced personal efficacy can certainly require you to be vulnerable, but if you are in a safe space, it can be as simple as asking your co-workers, bosses, and teachers for more recognition of what you do well.
Cynicism is much harder to address, and honestly, requires a look at the people around you. Cynicism is often related to a boss’ emotional intelligence and a worker’s attachment style. And negative feelings towards your job, co-workers, and goals often arise as a coping mechanism because you aren’t being treated well.
I realize that addressing burnout in full cannot be summed up in the few pages of a newsletter, but I hope that you’ve received some insight into the solutions available! If you want more specifics on how to address musicians’ burnout, Kensley has a fundamentals course for you!
BIO
Kensley Behel earned her Ph.D. in Performing Arts Health from the University of North Texas. She also works as a freelance journalist covering gymnastics all around the globe. She uses her combined experience in athletics and research to help musicians develop a health-aware mindset.
To learn more or to connect with Kensley, you can find her at:
Website: kensleybehel.com
Instagram: Instagram.com/kensleybehel
Facebook: facebook.com/musicianshealthlab
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