The Burnout of Caregivers

Empowering Chats with Susan Burrell

Ep#242 - The Burnout of Caregivers, An Interview with author, David Schenck.

This Empowering Chat is spot on for this month’s theme of “society” particularly after what we have all been through with the pandemic and the stress this puts on our healthcare system and our health providers.

I am honored to introduce author David Schenck. His book is called, “Into the Field of Suffering: Finding the other side of Burnout.” In this interview we discuss the depleting challenges many of our health care workers have experienced in the workplace, particularly over the last 3 plus years during and since the pandemic.

David’s book has a no-nonsense approach that is easy to follow. He and his co-author Scott Neely interviewed not just caregivers, but doctors, nurses, and others in the healing professions, including hospice providers. And many of those interviews can be found in the book.

David also introduces ethics into this work when dealing with burnout. According to David, healing is touching people on many different levels, not just the physical plane.

The easy advice to give, particularly to those in healthcare, are things like: eat better, exercise more, do your awareness practices – and those are all good but the moral fabric of who they are also needs to be addressed. If it is not also part of the conversation then there could be a feeling of being violated within their vocation or at the core of who they are. Renewal and healing from burnout can not be reached if this is not addressed.

David also touched on moral distress. He explains that this term came about to explain the moral anguish which occurs when these caregivers, healthcare professionals take home with them all the stress and “institutionalized” rules and directives they experienced in the workplace. When this happens all that stress settles into the body.

David likes to think of burnout as a process of burning off the ego inflation. It is all about re-framing where we sit in life and this can help health care providers too when trying to heal from burnout.

To help the healthcare professionals and the many caregivers heal from burnout he feels there needs to be an awareness of the balance in everything. It’s about the willingness to embrace all of what shows up, the illness and the vulnerability, the balance and the imbalance as they are all intertwined. When we recognize that and are willing to embrace it then we can get to the core of what this is all about and really, it’s in everything.

To purchase David’s Book please visit: https://www.amazon.com/Into-Field-Suffering-Finding-Burnout

To learn more about me and how I show up in the world please visit my website at: SusanBurrell.com