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Revista Universidad y Sociedad

versión On-line ISSN 2218-3620

Universidad y Sociedad vol.12 no.6 Cienfuegos nov.-dic. 2020  Epub 02-Dic-2020

 

Artículo original

Study of structural and functional characteristics of professional "burning out" of teachers in the context of a metasystem approach

Estudio de las características estructurales y funcionales de la "quema" profesional de profesores en el contexto de un enfoque metasistema

0000-0002-5625-8946Nagieva Vafa Geiser Kyzy1  * 

1 Baku State University. Azerbaijan

ABSTRACT

The ability of a modern teacher of the school education system to effectively resist stressful situations largely depends on the possibility of timely receipt of qualified psycho-correctional and psycho-counselling assistance. Reflexive mental technologies of psychological correction of the personality of a "burnt out" teacher, which have proven themselves as effective algorithms for influencing the personality, imply not so much symptomatic correction of the state of professional "burnout" as require the psychologist to build effective algorithms for deep psychological intervention in the personality of a specialist with the aim of its mental value - semantic therapeutic restructuring. In this paper it is analysed the problem of professional burn out from a metasystemic interpretation approach. Based on the analysis made it is proposed to use the following typology of ideal descriptive models: Professional victim", "Professional money-grubber" and “Professional imitators”.

Key words: Professional "burnout"; metasystem; value; meanings; mentality; consciousness; lifestyle; descriptor; emotions; behavior

RESUMEN

La capacidad de un maestro moderno del sistema de educación escolar para resistir eficazmente situaciones estresantes depende en gran medida de la posibilidad de recibir oportunamente asistencia psico-correccional y psico-orientacional calificada. Tecnologías mentales reflexivas de corrección psicológica de la personalidad de un profesor "quemado", que se han demostrado como algoritmos eficaces para influir en la personalidad, implican no tanto la corrección sintomática del estado de profesional "quemado" como requiere el psicólogo para construir algoritmos eficaces para la intervención psicológica profunda en la personalidad de un especialista con el objetivo de su valor mental - reestructuración terapéutica semántica. En este trabajo se analiza el problema del desgaste profesional desde un enfoque de interpretación metasistémica. Con base en el análisis realizado se propone utilizar la siguiente tipología de modelos descriptivos ideales: Víctima profesional "," Traficante profesional de dinero "e" Imitadores profesionales ".

Palabras-clave: Profesional "burnout"; metasistema; valor; significados; mentalidad; conciencia; estilo de vida; descriptor; emociones; comportamiento

Introduction

The profession of a teacher makes high demands on the professional and social competence of a specialist, requires intensive dedication and creative self-realization emotional richness of the educational process, active implementation of innovations, focus on high professional culture, cognitive and didactic complexity of learning as a technological process create conditions for the emergence of stress and the accumulation of negative emotions caused by intense workload. The accumulation of negative emotions caused by professional overload leads to an increase in cases of disability in the form of the development of massive professional and personal deformities, which is subjectively experienced and diagnosed by the teacher as a syndrome of professional "burnout", (Merzlyakova, 2007).

For this reason, in the modern education system, the psychological correction of the state of professional "burnout" is considered as an important theoretical and applied problem that needs further scientific and methodological optimization in line with the synergistic renewal of the educational industry paradigm.

Note that the study of the phenomenon of professional and personal destruction is a rather complex and multifaceted problem. This is due to the complex nature of the manifestation of the professional "burnout" as a syndrome, its multilevel determination and variability of). Analysing the degree of development of the problem of professional "burnout", it should be noted that its experimental study in the second half of the twentieth century was carried out mainly within the framework of the experimental-positivist approach, which, firstly, determined some methodological one-sidedness of the development, and, secondly, narrowed the possibilities the use of phenomenological analysis in this direction.

A successful attempt to solve the accumulated difficulties can be considered the use of the system-activity principle of interpreting professional "burnout" as an integral crisis phenomenon. Such methodological optimization dictates the need to use complex algorithms for organizing research practice, as a result of which the study of the phenomenon of professional "burnout" is increasingly becoming binary, which implies a methodological synthesis and the use of metasystem models of research practice. Considering that in the psychology of the beginning of the XXI the metasystem model of interpretation of psychological reality was finally formed as the most promising, the development of the phenomenon of professional “burnout as a complex psychological construct of a metasystem nature acquires a special scientific theoretical relevance and novelty.

Then, the main purpose of this paper is to highlight the individual results of the application of the metasystem model of the study of the phenomenon of professional "burnout" on the example of studying the content-semantic and emotional-dynamic characteristics, as well as the mental prerequisites for the manifestation of professional and personal destruction on the example of the analysis of the phenomenon of professional "burnout" among teachers of the school system.

Development

It should be noted that the study of the phenomenon of professional “burnout” is methodologically diverse in the works of Russian psychologists (Basov, 1926; Markova, 1990; Boyko, 1996; Grishina, 1997; Aminov, 2003; Bazhenova, 2003; Dmitrieva, et al., 2004; Vodopyanova & Kovalchuk, 2008). Nevertheless, in this regard, realizing that the most optimal direction for organizing modern research practice of the problem of professional "burnout" will be the use of a synergetic model of building scientific knowledge, which will make it possible to develop the phenomenon of professional "burnout" from the standpoint of its interpretation as a complex psychological construct of a metasystem nature (Khutorskoy 2005; Kornilov & Kornilova, 2010).

It should be noted that the syndrome of professional "burnout" of teachers has a three-component descriptive structure: emotional, cognitive and behavioral aspects of the description and develops within the framework of functional (conditioned by the subject's life experience) complex deformations of the model of semantic regulation of personal life relations:

  • Incorrect subjective perception of intentional balance as an imbalance between the substantial and professional spheres of the life activity of the personality improper self-organization of personal and industrial interpersonal space, poor time management.

  • Role-based cognitive dissonance or ambiguity in the role repertoire of the teacher's behaviour.

  • Personal predisposition as a hypertrophied humanistic orientation of the leading value-semantic basis of personality, which gives rise to pathogenic stereotypes of activity and communication attitudes.

As a result of the listed violations of the regulation of the processes of value-semantic relations of personality, the existential uniqueness of the social objectification of the teacher's personality is destroyed, which is considered as a deep psychological basis for the development of professional destructions. In this regard, complex deformations of semantic regulation can be simultaneously considered both as the systemic level of the personality organization and as its integral stable state, which allows us to consider professional "burnout" from the standpoint of its metasystem interpretation as a psychological phenomenon, whereby it is possible to simultaneously track both managing and controlled the possibilities of personality as a metasystem.

So, from the point of view of understanding professional "burnout" as an integral stable mental state, professional and personal destruction can be considered as a controllable state of the personality, which is achieved due to pathological inflexible fixation of pathogenic dynamic stereotypes both in the sphere of behavior and in the sphere of value-semantic formations of the personality of a professional (for example, when a person's non-constructive life experience controls his functional state as a systematic habit, he works intensively "to his detriment" under conditions of systematic stress).

If we consider professional "burnout" as a functional level of personality regulation, then the increase in negative dynamics of destructive manifestations of the teacher's personality in a situation of professional "burnout" can be interpreted as a kind of psychological trigger mechanism that triggers reflection and forms the necessary starting level of subjective readiness of the personality of the "burned out" a teacher to participate in psychotherapeutic and psycho-correctional activities. It can be argued that from this moment on, professional “burnout” passes from the formation of the metasystemic state of the personality to the formation of its metasystemic level of regulation, as it transforms from the category of a controlling factor into a state of a controlled process (Turchin, 2010)

According to the theory of metasystems by Turchin, personality can be considered as an integral biosocial metasystem. As a metasystem, the personality is controllable and has two levels of its organization: the sublevel of regulation and the level of integral systemic regulation, which at a certain stage of the development of the system are able to change places. Professional "burnout" can be considered both as a function of the biosocial system, and as an independent state of the individual in a situation of systematic work stress. At the same time, the state of the personality in the form of professional "stress" from the standpoint of the metasystem transition can be considered as an independently organized state of the metasystem.

Consequently, professional "burnout" as a metasystem function can be viewed in the form of the level of psychological changes that regulate the state of the personality and, if a lifestyle is a subjectively modeled way of reproducing professional values ​​and meanings, then professional "burnout" as a metasystem state of a personality is its image life and style of professional activity. In this regard, it can be argued that the correction of the state of professional "burnout" is impossible without a systemic correction of the model of life relations of a professionally "burned out" teacher. Therefore, the most productive is further study of the phenomenon of professional "burnout" in line with the provisions on the personality as a self-determined biosocial metasystem, objectifying itself from the standpoint of the trinity of the interpretation of psychological phenomena (emotional, cognitive and behavioral).

It is proposed to use the metasystem model of research practice as the most productive solution to the problem of methodological optimization of complex studies of the phenomenon of professional "burnout".

A systematic analysis of the development of scientific psychological concepts regarding the phenomenon of professional "burnout" shows the ambiguity of the interpretation of its structural and functional characteristics. Basically, the authors are similar regarding the value-semantic nature of the changes occurring in the structure of a specialist's personality under the influence of constant work stress and are unanimous about the polymodality-negative manifestations of its consequences for the personality.

It can be argued that the personal aspect of professional "burnout" is always deeply subjectively colored and can be considered as a result of the regulating system of deep representations of a professional about himself, about the world around him and his role in it, represented in the structure of the Image of I and I-concept. This is a kind of cognitive image of the world and oneself, born in childhood and undergoing changes in the framework of professional activity under the influence of subjective experience of critical life circumstances, meaningfully and emotionally determining the entire system of the subject's life relations. The state of professional "burnout" is a nonspecific response of a person to professional stress, which belongs to the category of non-constructive models of response (a person seeks to unconsciously reduce emotional pressure in a situation of professional stress, as a result of which general unproductiveness is observed in the emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and somatic spheres of personality organization in professional "burnt out" specialist (Bazhenova 2003).

The syndrome of professional "burnout" is the result of a certain non-constructive model of the teacher's life relations, it is the result of a formed way of life, a subjectively modeled way of reproducing professional values and meanings, realizing interests and abilities, embodying set cultural norms and rules of attitude towards others, towards the world of objective things and social phenomena. And, if a lifestyle is a socio-psychological characteristic of a person, which metasystemically represents not only the mode of its self-representation “here and now”, but also the mode of representation “the past as a given” and makes it possible to predict “the future as a possibility” (Nekrasova, 2010) then the professional “burnout” of a personality can also be considered as a metasystem characteristic of its state, which integrally reflects all personal substructures: needs, values, meanings, worldview and interests.

Creatively developing the idea of Karpov that the very essence of the psychic is such that in its own content, that metasystem is represented and receives its existence, which is in relation to it initially externally placed and into which the psyche is objectively included (Karpov, 2007), it can be argued that in a certain sense, the personality of a professionally "burnt out" specialist itself forms the objective prerequisites of the professional environment, "driving" the personality of a professional into a stressful dead end. Consequently, the subjective-objective (organizational and managerial) and objective (role and socio-cultural, technological and procedural) features of the working environment of a specialist are traditionally considered as inhibitors and externally imposed environmental conditions,

From the point of view of the applied use of the metasystem interpretation of professional "burnout", it can be argued that due to the metasystem level of organization of the personality as a biosocial system, within the personality structure itself there are always levels that are simultaneously localized both within the system (subjective value-semantic hierarchy, leading life meanings) and outside of it (in relation to the professional sphere of activity, these are corporate traditions, social representations, professional mentality), as a result of which the system (personality) gains the ability to make (by reaching this level external to it) itself as a whole as an object of its own influence , management and self-organization (Karpov 2007).

The functional element of the management of self-organization processes from the point of view of the metasystem approach is the internal level, the main structural component of which is the category of meaning. And despite the fact that the phenomenon of professional "burnout" is a complex and multi-level symptomatology of mental losses due to prolonged overstrain in situations of emotional or cognitive overload, as a result, a person loses not only work activity and efficiency but according to sooner or later a professionally "burnt out" specialist is faced with the most important existential psychological problem of his life - a decrease in subjective satisfaction, the very process of life and the loss of the ability to realize the meaning of life.

Meaning can be considered as a structural element of the analysis of the content of the professional concept of personality, the deformations of which are at the heart of personal changes in a situation of professional "burnout". Therefore, the definition of the syndrome of professional burnout through the interaction of external and internal factors makes it possible to study professional "burnout" simultaneously from personal and social positions. With regard to the problem of structural and functional analysis of the state of professional "burnout", the meaning is considered in the plane of refraction of the needs sphere of an individual and her life experience through the sphere of her professional activity. Therefore, the main content modes of manifestation of professional burnout as a systemic phenomenon in the life of a teacher included the corresponding content modes of the professional's lifestyle: his subjective attitude towards others, towards the world of objective things and social phenomena, as well as the personality's ability to influence and transform the world around him.

It seems expedient to include the content-semantic and content-dynamic characteristics of the teacher's subjective experience of the state of professional crisis, caused by an acute feeling of subjective dissatisfaction with his professional activity and, in general, with the whole process of life, to the main structural and functional components of the analysis and the characteristics of the state of professional "burnout" of a specialist mediated by them. At the same time, by the structural-meaningful and structural-dynamic components of the model of professional "burnout" we mean the system of the established system of value-semantic automatisms, established by the influence of the lifestyle and experience of the individual's life activity, which determine the teacher's attitude to himself, to others, to the world of subject matters, things and social phenomena, to their profession, to the relationship between the spheres of personal and professional.

It seems that such structural and functional characteristics of the syndrome of professional "burnout" determine the need for the simultaneous use of both psychometric and descriptive descriptive research procedures. Such complex research practices work with such diagnostic markers as meaning, value, need, mentality, lifestyle and orientation of the personality of a professionally "burnt out" specialist. At the same time, the study of deep value-semantic structures of consciousness as the mental basis of the state of professional "burnout" requires the researcher to be able to diagnose and understand the socio-cultural prerequisites for the formation of not only the actual model of life relations of a "burnt out" teacher, but also to analyze the qualitative originality of the processes of his inculturation and socialization , within the framework of which the deep mental structures of consciousness were formed as regulators of the subjective model of his life and professional relations.

Thus, it can be generalized that in view of the fact that modern psychology uses a diverse field of descriptors of emotional, cognitive-semantic and behavioral formats to describe the phenomenon of professional "burnout", the study of professional "burnout" in line with the methodological monism seems to be an unproductive research strategy. Methodological integration of the study of professional "burnout" as a phenomenon of a metasystemic nature should be carried out within the framework of the use of complex experimental procedures that integrate not only psychometric, but also projective, descriptive research procedures.

The experimental study was carried out in the form of a mental screening of the personality of a “burnt out” teacher. In its form, it is a complex research procedure, since psychometric, projective and descriptive research procedures were simultaneously used using the techniques of self-observation and self-reflection in the form of small standardized self-reports of the subjects.

Mental screening of the personality of a professionally “burnt out” teacher is a systemic basis for his further successful psychological correction and is based on diagnostics and subsequent comparative analysis of current (due to the professional situation) and leading life values ​​and meanings of the personality of a professionally “burned out” teacher. In this regard, the main experimental objectives of the study are:

  • substantiate a set of methods and techniques for diagnosing value-semantic structures included in the process of emotional "burnout".

  • explore the psychological mental mechanisms of regulation of professional and personal destruction of teachers.

  • based on the results of the experimental research, present a description of the emotional content and dynamic characteristics and mental prerequisites for the emergence of a state of professional "burnout" as some ideal descriptive models on the example of studying teachers in the educational system.

The general population of the subjects during the research was made up of school teachers aged 25 to 67 years. A sample was formed using random numbers with an average size of 30 ≤n≤ 850 respondents. From the number of subjects a representative sample of professionally "burned out" teachers was selected using a survey methodology developed by the author: "Professional pedagogical self-screening" (PPS) (Boyko, 1996).

The use of of the teaching staff in the case acted as the main means of collecting the necessary primary verbal information about the socio-psychological history of professionally "burned out" teachers, which, together with the results of projective methods, made it possible to understand causal relationships in the system "leading mental meanings, lifestyle (how distribution of priorities in the sphere of substantial and professional self) and non-constructive professional behavior ”of the teacher. Also, the survey serves to clarify and expand the control of data obtained using other diagnostic techniques.

The simultaneous use of projective and questionnaire diagnostic research procedures allows us to study the structural elements and functional characteristics of the phenomenon of professional "burnout" as a systemic crisis phenomenon in the life of a teacher. The study of the content-semantic and content-dynamic characteristics of the syndrome of professional "burnout" will be incomplete without studying the mental structures of consciousness as systemic regulators of optimal professional well-being and vital activity of the tested teachers. For this, the study used the practice of short, standardized self-reports of subjects.

Comparison of the results of survey and projective research procedures allow to understand how the sources of early socialization of the teacher's personality (family, spiritual education, experience of experiencing critical life situations) affect the formation of a pathogenic model of professional behavior. Answer the question of why the balance of the distribution of activity and priorities of the significance of value-semantic characteristics that regulate interests and needs between the manifestation of the substantial and professional I of the teacher's personality is disturbed, which leads to the emergence of a syndrome of professional "burnout" as a crisis state of the personality of a professional.

In the study, it was used the following diagnostic tools:

  1. Author's procedure of the questionnaire survey "Professional pedagogical self-screening" (PPS), which allows, based on the use of the content analysis procedure as a method of statistical processing of the obtained verbal material, to draw a conclusion about the qualitative (substantive) features of the imbalance in the distribution of semantic priorities between the spheres of “substantial” and “professional” I of “burned out” teachers.

  2. Projective author's diagnostic technique-schematization "My life story", which allows to obtain additional information about those important sources of socialization of the personality of the respondents, which had the greatest influence on the formation of basic mental values and meanings in their worldview structure. The methodological method reveals the sources of socialization and the system of leading life-professional mental values and meanings of the personality of professionally "burnt out" teachers.

  3. Methodology for standardized self-reporting and disenfranchised, which made it possible to reveal the qualitative emotional and behavioral features of the subjective experience of "burnt out" teachers of their state in the process of coping with a professional "crisis".

  4. Study of the socio-psychological and professional anamnesis of the personality of the subjects, using the technology of content analysis.

The analysis and interpretation of the results were carried out on the basis of using the mathematical statistical computer program for processing numerical experimental data "Statistica-6.0", which made it possible to use such statistical processing procedures as primary statistical processing (diagrams), cluster and correction analysis (using Pearson's coefficients).

The study showed that professional “burnout” is a fairly common negative phenomenon among teachers in the school system. Regardless of age and qualification characteristics, professional "burnout" is characteristic of more than 64% of the teachers surveyed from the general population of respondents. This is a high percentage, which is due to factors of a social, professional and psychological nature. Among them were identified unregulated professional time management, insufficient auto reflection as a tool of psychological self-optimization in a state of industrial overload, imbalance in the distribution of efforts in professional and personal life spheres, “random” choice of profession (unloved job or unsuitability), pathogenic self-attitude system based on inadequately low self-esteem or hypertrophied , humanistic orientation, value-semantic orientations of the personality of "burnt out" teachers, are the main reasons for the occurrence of professional "burnout" in the pedagogical environment.

A comparative analysis of the results of the teaching staff methodology and standardized self-reports of the subjects allow to establish that the syndrome of professional "burnout" is not so much a set of separate socio-psychological and professional-destructive symptoms as it is a holistic integral vital crisis state of the teacher's personality. It is a pathogenic model of the image life, which took shape under the influence of the entire life experience of the individual. This statement is supported by the found dense correlative positive connections in the level of the group professional burnout - mental load (Kcorr = 0.567 at P-level≤0.05).

This correlation coefficient means that according to the results of the PPS methodology and the projective author's technique-schematization "My Life Story", a close correlation has been found between the level of severity of professional burnout and the mental load of such sources of socialization of respondents as parental family, spiritual (ethnic, religious) education and critical life circumstances. The result obtained testifies to the meaningful relationship between the early sources of socialization and the subsequent model of life relations of the personality of the "burnt out" mental semantic structures of consciousness very closely mediate the teacher's subjective attitude not only to life in general, but also to his professional activity in particular.

Content analysis revealed a semantic similarity of mental and subjective actual ideas about their professional activities among teachers, as a result of which it can be argued that the substantial imbalance as an imbalance between personal and professional life spheres and as one of the main characteristics of the state of professional "burnout" is deeply mediated by all previous life experience of the teacher's personality, reflecting early mental experience.

This statement is also supported by the high coefficients of correlation in the level of professional burnout - substantial imbalance (Kcorr = 0.567 at P-level≤0.05) and the level of professional burnout - cognitive impairment (Kcorr = 0.54 at P-level≤0.05). At the same time, between the indicators of the PPS methodology "substantial imbalance", "cognitive impairment", "behavioral deformation" and "emotional destruction", there were found dense positive correlations in the form of a highly significant Pearson coefficient Kcorr avg. = 0.48 (in the range of critical values 0.41≤Kcorr≤0.58 with a significance level of P-level≤0.05).

For the vast majority of respondents, the choice of a profession is considered as a serious life decision (Kcorr = 0.85 at P-level≤0.05) in the galaxy of "experience" - "age", which indicates that even if the teacher is no longer satisfied with his work, the teacher still prefers to remain committed to his professional choice.

It was found negative correlations in the category "experience" - "subjective imbalance" and "age" - "subjective imbalance" (respectively, K corr = -0.32 and K corr = -0.34 at P-level≤0.05), which allow to argue that with age, teachers, regardless of the level of their subjective satisfaction with their work, learn effective time management, self-optimization techniques, as a result of which they evenly distribute life activity between the substantive and professional spheres.

A cluster analysis of the results of the teaching staff methodology showed that, depending on the age, length of service and the level of expression of the indicators of the teaching staff methodology, all respondents can be conditionally combined into separate cluster groups that allow describing all professionally "burned out" teachers as representatives of a certain psychological typological mental model of personality, which makes it easier not only in-depth diagnostics, but also psychological correction in general. Applying the procedure of cluster analysis and in relation to the results of content analysis and the teaching staff methodology, it was possible to identify two main mental personality models: these are “imitators” of professionalism and professional “victims”.

The respondents of the first cluster group more often “burn out” due to low professional culture, incompetence (for health reasons with age, discrepancy between personal and professional types) or because of a subjectively negative attitude towards their work (random choice of a profession). Representatives of the second cluster group are carriers of the classic model of professional "burnout", due to high workloads and hypertrophied altruistic orientation of their personality, they can be considered as professional "victims". Hypertrophied altruism in this case is manifested in the teacher's excessive infertility and obedience, in his colossal dedication on the verge of psychological breakdown in the process of daily performance of professional duties to the detriment of himself and in the name of achieving the goals of professional perfectionism. In this case, we can talk about a complex of professional “sacrifice”, when a hypertrophied complex of humanistic-prosocia value-semantic orientation destroys not only professional, but life well-being of the teacher.

This category of respondents accounted for 67.9% of the total number of “burned out” teachers, it is in this category that the largest number of “burned out” teachers with an intensely pronounced state of professional “burnout”. On the other hand, the “shadow” form of manifestation of the pathological semantic orientation of the personality of “burned out” teachers is a set of perfectionist-career and sometimes openly acquisitive orientations of the personality of the “burnt-out specialist”. This cluster group consisted of 32.1% of teachers from among the professional "burned out" specialists, who were identified in the study as clusters of "professional money-grubbing" and "imitators of" professionalism "(at the same time, these cluster groups were insufficient skill, and teachers of the age category over 55 with a pronounced everyday, vital orientation, as well as a pronounced career-perfectionist orientation).

Comparative analysis of the standardized self-reports of the subjects, the results of the analysis of the socio-psychological and professional anamnesis of the subjects in relation to the results of the methodology "The Main Rules of My Life" allowed to identified that regardless of the social and moral value of the professional life orientation and substantive features of the system of leading mental basic values and meanings (hypertrophied prosocial or hypertrophied career-acquisitive orientation), the state of professional "burnout" is always formed as a result of the automation of the negative pathological value-semantic model of the lifestyle of the personality of the "burned out" teacher.

At the heart of the imbalance in the distribution of vital activity between the substantial self and the professional self in professionally "burnt out" teachers is a defect in productive value-semantic self-regulation. This defect is caused by the violation of the mental value-semantic regulatory system of the personality even in the early periods of socialization, as a result of which, at the level of subjective reflection, the personality becomes "insensitive" to the imbalance in various spheres of life (targeted non-regulation of behavior leading to professional maladjustment).

Among the most significant factors of non-regulation and the forms of their manifestation are: the teacher's inability to understand the existential uniqueness of himself, to feel the existential self-worth of himself as a person and the lack of an impulse for creative existential self-realization. This defect in the value-semantic mental self-regulation can be defined as a systemic existential crisis of the personality, which will potentially necessarily manifest itself in the future in the life of a “burnt out” teacher. It seems that this defect of value-semantic regulation is laid on the example of models of parental behavior in the process of early (up to 10-12 years of a person's life) professions and socialization. The leading role here is played by the models of parent-child relations, the system of regulatory leading values and meanings.

The basic systemic category of the structural analysis of the personality of a “burnt-out” teacher, capable of descriptively detailed presentation of the personality and the phenomenon of professional “burnout”, is meaning as the basic unit of analysis of the mental structure of the personality of a “burnt-out” specialist. The main meaningful structural characteristics of the description of the state of professional burnout include content-semantic (how a person experiences and treats himself and others in a state of professional "burnout") and emotionally dynamic (how a teacher reacts brightly and emotionally directly) modes of analysis.

At the same time, the content-semantic modes of subjective experience of the situation of professional "burnout" are mediated by the mental structures of consciousness and are manifested in the form of automated and often unconscious mental leading values, meanings and needs of the life of an adult specialist, while the emotional and dynamic characteristics of the syndrome of professional "burnout" are more often determined by the temperature-operative characteristics and the type of nervous activity of the personality, as a result of which they are rather limitedly available for the possibilities of corrective psychological practice.

Two main mental typologies of the personality of “burned out teachers” were revealed: professional “victims” and “imitators” of professionalism. Professional "victims" are characterized by a hypertrophied professional-perfectionist orientation of the professional model of their personality. The most common forms of manifestation of a hypertrophied humanistic-prosocial orientation of the professional type of personality of "burned out" teachers, capable of destroying not only the emotional, but also the professional well-being of a specialist's personality, include:

  • Excessive passion for work (compensatory workaholism).

  • Violation of the balance of vital activity in the vital areas of the distribution of activity.

  • Critical, on the verge of self-sacrifice, professional dedication, perfectionism.

  • Contradictory and often lowered self-esteem with hypertrophied desire for social recognition.

  • The habit of solving professional problems to the detriment of their own important needs for rest, creative self-realization, full-fledged personal and family life.

For "imitators" of professionalism, an imbalance in the direction of the utilitarian-everyday orientation of their personality is more often characteristic, as a result of which work is considered as a zone of negative or neutral semantic meanings: the need to earn money, a factor of loss of time, additional workload, etc. For such professionally "burnt out", accidental arrival in the profession, when the teacher considers his work as a necessary and often forced, the only available source of income in order to satisfy basic vital needs (material support for the family, service of personal utilitarian interests and needs, etc.) or, the sharply expressed career-utilitarian orientation of the personality of the “burned out” teacher plays its negative role.

Generalizing the above and in order to unify the diagnostic procedure in the process of planning psychological correctional work with “burned out” teachers, it is proposed to use the following typology of ideal descriptive models:

  1. "Professional victim" (hypertrophied humanistic orientation of the personality, leading the mental meaning of "professional service, perfectionism". Risk factors: length of service, age, intense professional activity, healthy professional perfectionism ("work for the sake of work").

  2. "Professional money-grubber" (hypertrophied hedonistic or adaptive orientation of the personality, social adaptability, leading the mental meanings of "careerism, self-sufficiency, material orientation"). Risk factors: search for earnings, lack of real interest in work, excessive orientation in the sphere of vital life interests (work for the sake of personal life).

  3. “Professional imitators” (social adaptation against the background of a low general professional and personal level of development). Leading mental meanings: the search for life and material stability, the principle of maximum life-saving, adaptability, passive life and professional position. Risk factors: lack of hunger to grow professionally, social and professional parasitism, narrowly utilitarian personal interests, selfishness and egocentrism of a living position.

Conclusions

An effective mechanism for the implementation of mental correction is the reflexive self-analysis of the personality of the “burned out” teacher, built on the awareness of the pathological role of the leading mental personal values and meanings that create a defect in the semantic existential regulation of needs in various life spheres: substantial and professional. Thus, the main direction of the correction is the systemic restructuring of the hierarchy of the value-semantic system of the “burnt out” teacher, the revision of the leading life priorities on the basis of reflexive introspection.

Bibliographic references

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Received: August 09, 2020; Accepted: October 20, 2020

*Autor para correspondencia. E-mail: gorchu@mail.ru

Los autores declaran no tener conflictos de intereses

Los autores han participado en la redacción del trabajo y análisis de los documentos.

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