ABSTRACT
The increasing prevalence of burnout pathology in modern Western society is a concerning phenomenon that warrants further investigation. In this paper we will look into its history and explore how its complex psychopathology has been described since it was coined in the 70s. Secondly, we will look into the important interplay of personality features and work related factors and how current management practices, modern technology and globalization have exacerbated processes of dehumanization in many occupations. Finally, we will explore how the reasons for an increase in burnout pathology extend far beyond changes in the professional sphere and could be considered an evident outcome of the profound crisis of the Western individual searching for meaning in a postmodern world. We will postulate that, rather than a disease in the classic sense, burnout is a complex multifactorial syndrome that affects the modern individual who is caught between a self-referential project of existential purpose-seeking and the drive for limitless growth propagated by today’s globalized neoliberal capitalist society.
