Those in the helping professions face burnout, impairment, secondary trauma, and compassion fatigue. Burnout is distinct to vocational callings. It’s not merely the cumulative stress of working in any job. Freudenberger coined the term burnout in 1974 as, “a state of fatigue or frustration brought about by a devotion to a cause, a way of life, or a relationship that failed to produce the expected reward.” This separates burnout from someone who is perhaps fatigued by a job in which they find no meaning or are not employed in a devotion to a cause. Cumulative stress can affect a successful career in any profession, but the cumulative stress of a vocational calling can lead to burnout. Any of the helping professions are vocational, as much as cynical cops and firefighters try to pretend otherwise. 

Burnout, in turn, can lead to impairment. Impairment can diminish or outright destroy a career. Impairment is when someone is negatively impacted by their inability to effectively manage their stress. Fundamentally, impairment is a lack of wellness. Sound familiar? 

Life’s regular stressors or changes can exasperate burnout or impairment. Some of the most impactful life events include the death of a spouse, divorce or separation, personal injury or illness, or the change in health of a family member. It is important to be aware of how personal life can impact professional life and vice versa.  Impairment can present with many signs including chronic fatigue, feelings of helplessness, even excessive self-criticism, or missing work. Fatigue can be a vicious cycle. Fatigue can begin to set in when we are surrounded by stress or a significant incident. From there, negative thoughts of self-doubt or anxiety begin to set in. These intrusive thoughts can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed, unmotivated, apathetic, or even hopeless. These feelings often manifest in withdrawal, or with physical symptoms like anxiousness, irritability, fatigue, headache, or insomnia. These physical signs and symptoms are warning flags for the onset of burnout or impairment.   

Preventing impairment requires insight and self-care. You must be able to recognize levels of personal distress, and deliberately make time for yourself. It’s also important to have an awareness of negative thoughts and be able to effectively reduce or overcome them. Having an openness to seek and receive support (therapeutic or otherwise), and being able recognize the physical impact of psychological distress, can save your career, your relationships, and your life.

Impairment can negatively impact us in many different ways. Impairment may be encroaching when you are experience feelings of inadequacy, cynicism, or even nihilism. When a you begin to ask yourself, “What’s the point of all of this?” it may become difficult to start going to work, or to find meaning in the work you’re doing. Police supervisors are taught, or should have been taught, absenteeism and diminished work performance could be signs of a potentially impaired employee struggling to cope with significant stress. When these signs occur, it’s important to check in with your subordinates, squamates, or other co-workers. 

The focus on officer wellness should be the mortar that holds an organization together. There is a concept in the mental health world, that if a clinician is impaired, they could actually cause harm to their clients. I suspect the same could be true of law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. It’s not enough for organizations to make officer wellness a priority, it must be true from the community as well. George Washington said, “A nation is judged by how well it treats its veterans.” I would argue the same could be said for a city and it’s first responders. 

If impairment is being unable to optimally function, then the opposite is wellness. In other words, impairment is a lack of wellness. There are multiple aspects of wellness. Social wellness is the health and functionality of interpersonal relationships. These relationships include friends, family, neighbors, and intimate partners. Emotional wellness includes an ability to handle stress, maintaining a positive outlook or disposition, and over-all self-confidence and self-esteem. Psychological wellness goes beyond emotional wellness and includes mental health stability and striving toward self-actualization. Physical wellness includes healthy habits related to sleep, diet, and exercise. Intellectual wellness is an openness to new ideas, learning, skill development, and creativity. Spiritual wellness is centered on having a sense of meaning or purpose in life. Occupational wellness involves having a sense of vocation which not only contributes to providing meaning but allows financial stability to experience other aspects of life. Lastly, environmental wellness involves living in harmony with the physical world around you.

By evaluating each of the areas of wellness, you can determine where you may have a deficit and begin working toward improvement. With understanding of your strengths and weakness in these areas, a wellness plan can be implemented for more effective self-care. This includes setting specific measurable goals toward improvement in each of these areas. Wellness is not a one and done exercise, it is an ongoing practice of balancing the different aspects of our lives. An effective wellness plan can only work if it consists of sustainable behaviors and routines.

Assessment and Wellness Plan

You can develop a wellness plan from the following four self-assessments: Stress Reactions Inventory; Self-Care Assessment; Self-Care Life Pie Worksheet; and the Self-Care Social Support Worksheet. These assessments will help quantify the different areas of wellness which you will need to focus. The results will help you identify your areas of attention toward wellness, changes needed, and where to implement change.

Print of each of these assessments, take a moment to go through them. I found them beneficial. The information in them may not be anything new, but they may help quantify the stressors in your life and remind you of where you could do better. It’s important to check in with yourself from time to time. This is a great opportunity to do just that. 

http://www.yorku.ca/rokada/psyctest/socsupp.pdf

https://studentwellness.uci.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Assessing-Your-Life-Balance.pdf

https://www.mentoring.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/MARCH_2015_Self_Care_Assessment.pdf

https://www.dartmouth.edu/eap/library/lifechangestresstest.pdf