Basic personality deformations in work activity. Professional destruction of personality……………………………19. Why personality deformation is a negative factor

The process by which a person’s personal qualities change is called professional deformation. For people with this disorder, work is a priority and takes up all of their time. But it does not bring pleasure, it only depresses and irritates. A professional personality type is gradually formed.

Causes

Professional personality deformation is a process in which a person’s work habits are transferred to his personal life. A formal, functional attitude towards all people (even close ones) appears. All conversations with such a person ultimately come down to discussing his work.

Those whose work activity involves working with people are more likely to suffer from professional deformation. These are doctors, psychologists, company executives, managers, teachers, and officials.

The main reasons for this behavior are listed below.

1. Lack of interest in work. This usually applies to people who stay because of high salaries. They have no other motives. In most cases, these are students who work as waiters, baristas, salespeople, and promoters during their studies.
2. Professional fatigue. This is the result of a long stay in a job that requires high dedication.
3. Overload with work responsibilities. There are positions that involve performing a large number of different jobs. Worst option– when it is not clearly limited, and a person is forced to do something that is not part of his job responsibilities.
4. High level of nervousness. It occurs among managers, administrators, and top managers who are responsible for the work of their subordinates. They are constantly in a stressful situation and find it difficult to remain calm.
5. Monotone. The same type of work, which does not change for years, often depresses a person. It does not develop at all, sometimes it even degrades.
6. Lack of opportunities for self-realization. Some people choose a job based on one factor - high pay. But time passes, the need for self-realization appears, but it cannot be satisfied. Sometimes a strict boss who does not support initiative people and their creative ideas becomes an obstacle. He focuses only on his own decisions, and does not take into account the opinions of his subordinates.
7. Unfavorable environment in the team. Colleagues constantly quarrel, unable to find an optimal solution to the problem. Manifestations of envy, ridicule, reproaches and bullying are possible.
8. Strict management. There are managers for whom the human factor is secondary. It is impossible to ask such a boss to leave work early, get a deferment or leave. Due to constant pressure from him, it is very difficult for the employee to enjoy his work. Often you have to act against your interests and desires.
9. Heightened self-esteem. Without good experience, a person still considers himself better than others. Constantly demands to raise the salary level, to provide only the best orders. But the reality, opposite to the imaginary, negatively affects his psyche. Typically, such a person will be completely disappointed, and an obsessive reluctance to work in the future will appear.
10. Age-related changes. A person’s needs change, and demands for decent working conditions increase. What brought pleasure at the beginning of your career no longer interests you at all. I want career growth, prospects, financial independence.
11. Misunderstanding of work goals. A person works hard and hard. Initially, the work itself may interest him more than payment, so he works for the idea. But later, a person’s goals change or interest in work disappears, and he no longer understands why he works, what useful things it will give him in the future.
12. Concealment of company goals by management. It only gives instructions to subordinates. This is the wrong approach, because employees must know what result they are working for, what impact their work will have on achieving their goals.

Signs

Main manifestation professional deformation– constant fatigue. A person hardly gets enough sleep due to sleep disorders. His psyche is in poor condition, various kinds of disorders develop. Because of this, a person is susceptible to depression and phobias.

Other signs of professional deformation.

1. Manner of communication and behavior. Professional deformation implies a change in both factors. Instead of a cheerful and cheerful person, a person who is constantly dissatisfied, angry and sad comes into contact. It is very difficult for such a person to separate personal life and work, since work activity occupies everything free time employee.
2. Lack of hobbies. This shows signs of workaholism. Conversations are related only to work, since all free time is devoted to it.
3. Decreased productivity. Typically, performance deteriorates by 2-3 times. The person stops working at the same level and may perform duties poorly.

He is increasingly visited by thoughts that this job is not for him, and it’s time to change it. This may be due to high qualifications but low pay. The employee understands that he deserves more, but his superiors do not see his efforts, and his motivation disappears.

Kinds

Professional personality deformations manifest themselves in different ways. There are 4 types of behavior in the development of this disorder.

1. General professional change. Related to the nature of the job. Even in his free time, a person demonstrates professional skills. A policeman sees a potential criminal in every passer-by; a doctor, when shaking hands, does not think about the interlocutor, but evaluates his pulse, degree of sweating, the presence of slight tremors, etc. An employee cannot disconnect from performing work duties. This process is uncontrollable.
2. Professional-typological disorientation. A situation in which professional skills are applied in Everyday life. A leader easily copes with managing a large team or group of people. A doctor can provide first aid. The teacher teaches even when it is inappropriate.
3. Special dysfunction. This is a professional deformation that usually occurs in people whose work activity is intellectual and requires mental flexibility. These are accountants who know how to competently draw up financial fraud, lawyers who know how to satisfy the client’s wishes, circumventing the law.
4. Individual deformation. Develops under the influence of work characteristics. This may be a sense of responsibility among doctors, worries among educators. For some individuals, this manifests itself as superfanaticism at work. For others, because bad conditions an incorrect opinion is formed about the team.

Consequences

The main consequence is the formation of mental disorders. In most cases, professional deformation turns into another form - emotional burnout syndrome. A person no longer sees the meaning in life. He is constantly late with the delivery of work, which is why it accumulates. The quality of workmanship is falling.

The employee is constantly trying to improve the situation, paying even more attention to work in order to complete all tasks on time. But he gets reverse effect. He hardly sleeps. Because of this, he becomes irritated, aggressive and angry. Positive emotions doesn't experience it. He sees only the negative in everything.

If SEV is ignored, it can develop into a desire to commit suicide. The patient considers this the only way out of the current situation.

Other negative consequences.

1. Managerial erosion. This is a situation where the manager fails to cope with his responsibilities. The reasons may be different, but the effect is the same. His productivity drops, management becomes ineffective. This negatively affects the quality and speed of work of subordinates, which further depresses the manager. As a result, from a kind and calm boss, he turns into a real tyrant.
2. Decreased personal adaptability. A person stops looking for something new in his work. He is not interested in current trends and innovations. He refuses to take advanced training courses and other ways to increase knowledge in his specialization. This is accompanied by complete disappointment in work.
3. A feeling of administrative delight. It is associated with a person’s high self-esteem. Even if the increase was minor or the employee received some bonuses for excellent work, he will make a big deal out of it. This will negatively affect relationships with colleagues, because such an employee will begin to look down on everyone. He will consider himself the best, which he will not forget to tell others about once again.

Professional deformation also has positive consequences. This happens when professional skills help, but do not harm, a person in everyday life. It’s easy for a manager to organize a family holiday, and for a pastry chef to bake a delicious treat for a party. Musicians will help entertain guests or become the life of the party on a trip. A psychologist knows how to not only help his clients, but is also actively involved in his own life and self-development.

Prevention

In the early stages of the development of professional disorientation, a person is able to help himself. There is no need to get hung up on stereotypes and standards. Because of this, a person often limits himself in actions, trying to conform to the generally accepted pattern of behavior. This is where complexness begins to develop.

Other preventive measures.

1. Search for new experiences. Involves acquiring new knowledge. To do this, it is recommended to attend trainings related not only to advanced training, but also to help in personal growth.
2. Rest. It is impossible to work without breaks and days off, especially for workaholics. You need to be able to be distracted and find joy in any other activity.
3. Sport. A great way to distract yourself, especially for those whose activities involve intellectual work. Sport helps you unwind and relax. You can try yourself not only in strength or cardio training, but also in yoga and meditation. This will also help you find harmony with yourself.
4. Correct organization of time. Time management skills are needed not only by managers, but also by any employee. They are necessary for proper planning of the working day. Managing your time will help you distribute your energy between work, family and leisure.
5. Stepping out of your comfort zone. If you don’t do this, then any work will become routine and boring. You need to be able to overcome yourself and fight fears. And then there will be no personality degradation.
6. Communication with new people. It is desirable that these are positive, active and creative individuals. They will inspire you to work hard. They will tell you how to enjoy your work. Motivated to improve your financial situation.
7. Participation in non-standard projects. This especially applies to representatives of creative professions. Making original, non-standard decisions will always help keep your creative thinking in good shape. The more complex the project, the better. As a result of the successful implementation of a creative product, the employee will experience a lot of positive emotions.
8. Refusal to accumulate negativity. If communication with colleagues causes negative emotions, it is better to minimize it. If aggression and irritation appear after a conversation with your boss, you need to learn to control yourself. But if many aspects of the job are unsatisfactory, then the best solution is to quit. There is no need to keep negativity inside. It is necessary to at least sometimes discuss problems with family. You can also work with a psychologist. But you should not ignore this problem, because the process of personality destruction may begin.

Those who have high self-esteem need to learn self-criticism. There is no need to criticize yourself for every move, but you need to realistically evaluate your capabilities. Otherwise someone else will do it.

Correction

Professional personality deformation is a fairly stable phenomenon. Usually has a negative character. A person is upset, depressed, and cannot work normally for a long period of time. If you notice this on initial stage, then you can try to get rid of the obsessive state on your own. But if the disease has reached its limit in its development, then it is better to seek help from a specialist - a psychotherapist.

The most effective methods of treatment in psychology are group and cognitive behavioral therapy. They are often prescribed in combination.

Cognitive behavioral therapy involves changing behavior and thinking patterns. The course of treatment begins with self-analysis. The doctor asks the patient to answer the following questions:

• “How often do I reduce any conversation to talking about work”;
• “Do I work overtime or stick to a schedule”;
• “Are professional skills demonstrated in everyday life?”
• “Do I feel a loss of interest in work and degradation”;
• “I am interested in anything other than work”;
• “Do I attribute my success only to my professional activities”;
• “Am I afraid of losing my job”;
• “Are there anyone among my friends other than colleagues,” etc.

This will help to understand the degree of development of the disorder and determine the duration and composition of the course of treatment. Usually you need to attend 5-6 sessions. In particularly difficult cases - up to 10.

In addition to personal communication, cognitive behavioral therapy involves homework. Their implementation increases the effectiveness of treatment. Examples of homework:

• attending a cultural event not related to work activities;
• spending the whole day with family without distractions from work;
• playing sports;
• attending trainings, webinars, seminars on the topic personal growth and self-development;
• reading useful and fictional literature;
• meeting new people at least 3 per week;
• studying trends, new information;
• taking advanced training courses, etc.

Communication with a psychologist will make it clear whether you need to change the type of work activity. If the issue is a person’s perception of his work, then the doctor will help change negative attitudes to positive ones. To do this, affirmations will be voiced and repeated at each session.

As a result of treatment, the employee must understand his purpose and true attitude to work. Visits to a specialist will lead to the replacement of a degrading personality with one interested in their development in all areas of life.

Conclusion

Not every employee knows what professional deformation is. This is a process in which a person’s personal qualities and work skills change. An interested, active person turns into a sluggish, eternally tired employee.

The main reasons are monotony of work, pressure from superiors and colleagues, lack of prospects, overload with responsibilities, inflated self-esteem, etc. Treatment consists of taking a course of cognitive behavioral therapy, which can be prescribed in combination with group therapy.

Professional deformation occurs in representatives of many professions, among which you can most often see people who, on duty, constantly work with a large number of people - doctors, teachers, military personnel, psychologists, managers in a variety of fields.

In the above joke, the photographer began to take off his coat on camera, but how does the deformity manifest in others? The military man begins to command at home, making no distinction between a platoon of soldiers and his family, the teacher begins to teach not only the children at school, but also the neighbors, making comments to them on any occasion. Where do the reasons for this behavior come from? In fact, these people may have a desire to behave normally, but some are simply afraid to change, while others cannot admit to themselves that they are disappointed in their profession.

Among the reasons for deformation are heavy loads, specific working conditions, monotony of functions, strict regulations, and constant collisions with the problems of strangers.

According to psychologists, professional deformation develops from professional identity, when a person becomes so accustomed to only one social role that he cannot get out of it. He becomes the performer of his duties not only at work, but also at home. It’s just difficult to assess the level of your professional deformation, since this requires the ability to look at yourself from the outside, and as critically as possible. For an objective opinion, psychologists advise turning to a loved one.

Deformation is already close if:

• your loved ones are increasingly telling you that you are difficult to deal with;
• you are often told that a conversation with you is reminiscent of a conversation with a psychologist / teacher / investigator / lawyer / doctor - you transfer the professional language of communication into everyday life;
• your circle of acquaintances consists almost entirely of colleagues;
• all your conversations sooner or later come down to work issues;
• you are only interested in what relates to your profession;
• you perceive your acquaintances as the object of your work;
• you exclude yourself and your colleagues from displaying emotions and experiences in a work environment;
• you associate your success exclusively with your professional activities;
• you are afraid of losing your job, profession, colleagues.

How does professional deformation manifest itself?

How does deformation manifest itself? Let's give a few examples.

Teacher. The teacher's deformation lies in the fact that over time he begins to artificially look for errors in student work and find fault. At home, he continues to evaluate the actions of family members, relatives, and acquaintances, giving them ratings (even if the ratings are given mentally!). It comes to the point that he evaluates the actions of strangers who simply come across him on the street: he evaluates the acceptability of their behavior and is indignant at their lack of education.

Travel agency manager. A manifestation of deformation in a representative of this profession is that as soon as he hears someone’s story about a trip taken or a planned trip, he begins to ask purely professional questions and give the same recommendations. It looks like this: what route did you fly, what do you think of the airport in this city, what season are you planning your vacation for, why did you choose this country, what do you think of that hotel, etc.

Doctor. The professional deformation of a doctor lies in the fact that he already “automatically” begins to assess a person’s health, even when shaking hands: he immediately notes the pulse, temperature, and humidity of the palm. He begins to look for connections between the appearance of the interlocutor and diseases, gives advice like: you don’t look good, you have bags under your eyes, you need to go get checked, etc.

And so in any other profession. A marketer can evaluate every commercial he comes across while watching TV, a psychologist will try to get his interlocutor into a conversation in order to delve into his problems (although the interlocutor does not need this at all), a programmer will constantly algorithmize even the simplest process.

Causes of professional deformation

Many years of professional activity simply cannot be accompanied by continuous
professional development of the individual. Periods of stabilization, when you are practically not moving anywhere, are inevitable. At the beginning of your professional journey, these periods are short-lived, then they begin to become longer and longer, reaching a year or more. In such cases, these periods are already classified by psychologists as periods of professional stagnation of the individual. Stagnation occurs even when the level of your activity is quite high, but your work is carried out stereotypically, using the same techniques. Further stagnation leads to deformation, when a person is already so bogged down in his profession that he cannot get back - he can only play this role in society.

The prerequisites for deformation are :

• monotonous functions and actions that ultimately lead a person to a psychological barrier: it will be difficult for him to adapt if he finds himself in new conditions;
• emphasis on the motives for choosing a profession: this may be a desire to prove one’s importance, acquire a certain social status, or achieve power;
• super expectations at first professional activity, which ultimately do not correspond to reality.

These factors are only prerequisites that will eventually lead to professional deformation of the employee.

The main reasons for its development are :

• reluctance to work in this field - some understand that this work is not for them right away, others need years;
• professional fatigue that accumulates over years of work;
• age-related changes - in your youth this profession was suitable for you, but now you perform your functions automatically, although with age your goals have changed;
• lack of understanding of the goals of one’s work;
• monotony – constant monotonous work;
• overload with official duties;
• high self-confidence;
• high level nervousness, fatigue;
• constant stress;
• improper discipline;
• giving your all to your work while your colleagues do not recognize your merits;
• tension, conflicts among colleagues;
• lack of conditions for self-expression, when creativity and new ideas are rejected without discussion;
• impossibility of further training, advanced training, professional growth.

The causes of deformation in a particular person may be somewhat different - each of us is individual. Common reasons include monotony of work, monotonous functions, high levels of stress, fatigue, and professional fatigue.

Types of professional deformation

Changes in a person’s personality as a result of professional deformation are divided into four types:

1. General professional – changes that are characteristic of an employee of a particular profession (for example, a police officer considers everyone he meets as a possible criminal);
2. Special – deformations that arise in an employee of a particular specialization (for example, the resourcefulness of lawyers, which is so necessary for them in their work);
3. Professional typological – changes associated with the imposition of certain psychological characteristics of work on the personality (for example, the ability to cope with a crowd for a company manager);
4. Individual – deformations that can appear in a representative of any profession and are caused by active development professional qualities(for example, a sense of increased responsibility may be characteristic of an employee of any profession).

Consequences of deformation

Professional deformation can be both useful and cause serious problems.

Let's start with the benefits. Sometimes deformation is really useful, because some purely professional skills can be very helpful in everyday life. For example, a person who holds the position of boss can use his abilities to organize a family event. The doctor always knows how to provide first aid. The main thing is not to forget about the boundary between work and life. You can briefly include a professional worker in normal conditions, but only for a while.

Negative consequences the deformation is much greater:

• A feeling of administrative delight - when a person who has received a more or less significant position looks down on those around him;
• Emotional burnout - when work absorbs so much that the psychological protective barrier falls, a person burns out and does not see the meaning in life;
• Managerial erosion – when, as a result of deformation, a manager turns into an ineffective tyrant who is quick to kill;
• Decreased personal adaptability - when a person does not look for anything new in his profession;
• Deterioration of relationships with others - when communication patterns at work are transferred to everyday life.

To avoid such consequences of deformation, it is necessary to notice its first signs in time and eliminate them. Since the problem is psychological in nature, all its causes lie within ourselves, and, therefore, only we ourselves can overcome it.

Prevention of professional deformation

Start with self-check the extent to which the deformation manifests itself in you. We recommend using two methods:

Technique No. 1: answer the question “who am I?” for yourself. There must be at least 10 answers, write each of them down on a piece of paper. Then, for each answer, come up with three definitions of “what am I?” Definitions should not be repeated. Have you recorded it? Now let’s analyze what was recorded. What's missing from the list? What roles did you not take into account because their number is limited to 10, but are they important to you? Are they more important than the roles you wrote down? If more important, then it is these social roles (wife, girlfriend, mother, chatterbox, etc.) that are worth paying attention to. Also analyze the characteristics with which you described yourself in each role.

Technique No. 2: draw a circle and separate a sector from it that reflects the scope of your functions as an employee. The rest of the circle was divided among the rest of their interests. Now analyze which volumes you would like to increase? Due to which sectors? Here is the answer to the question of which areas of your life you have practically forgotten, having pushed them aside with work.

To prevent professional deformation, carry out such self-diagnosis more often, and also follow the following recommendations:

• Develop your ability to self-criticize;
• Try to be open to new knowledge and new experiences;
• Remember to rest and relax;
• Get out of your comfort zone;
• Try to reduce the level of emotional costs in your work;
• Maintain proper sleep and nutrition, exercise;
• Participate in non-standard projects at work;
• Activate your social life, communicate with friends, make new acquaintances;
• Work with people of other professions and interests, develop diversified.

Professional deformation is accompanied by psychological discomfort, constant tension, conflicts, and crises. Successful and timely resolution of professional difficulties will allow you to further develop both as an individual and as a professional in your field. In addition, by preventing the manifestations of professional deformation, you will get rid of.

In the next video you will see clear example professional deformation of personality.

During his working life, an employee develops qualities that are in demand in the field of his employment, which helps to improve his personality. However, prolonged performance of the same work often changes the mental qualities of a person, leaving a negative imprint on his neuro-brain structure and behavior in general. Qualities that are not in demand in professional activities disappear, and those most often used in the work process are distorted. Professional acts performed by a person distort him repeatedly and comprehensively. Duration, specificity, difficulty in terms of adaptation are the circumstances under the influence of which professional deformation occurs.

Negative and positive impacts

The answer to what professional deformation is is as follows: it is a change in personal properties under the influence of prolonged performance of professional duties. People whose activities involve regular interpersonal communication (trade workers, doctors, etc.) are most prone to this. Professional personality deformation is expressed in the fact that the employee begins to transfer work issues to everyday life and family. Certain behaviors are used among loved ones and friends and become the cause of misunderstandings and conflicts, aggravating interpersonal relationships.

The consequences of professional deformation are presented below.

• Reduced process of personality restructuring. A person with a certain type of work stops looking for alternative ways to solve problems that have arisen. Qualities in demand at work develop into character and become part of behavior: an accountant can carefully check daily expenses, a doctor can demand strict hygiene, and a successful artist can demand attention and self-worship in non-work circumstances.
• Formation of a mechanical approach to work instead of a creative one. Professional personality deformation can lead to a deterioration in the quality of work performed.
• Personal burnout. When a person is constantly immersed in work, it becomes uninteresting for him. This behavior is typical for employees who have been unable to advance for a long time. career ladder.
• Sometimes deformities can have a positive effect on a person, since certain professional skills sometimes help in everyday life. It is important that the individual is able to maintain the line between work and everyday life.

Kinds

Occupational deformities are divided into the following types.

• Physiological changes. This means atrophy of organs unsuitable for work or an increase in tissue structures and transformation of organs necessary to perform professional activities. Examples are diseases of the musculoskeletal system in people who work in front of a computer, throat problems in teachers, and delicate, sensitive skin of the hands in workers who do not engage in physical labor.
• Deformation of style and image. A person’s profession directly or indirectly affects the style of clothing, hairstyle, and accessories used. Personal activity also affects posture, manners, and gait. You can observe the swaying gait of sailors and the straightened posture of military men. The deformation also leaves a mark on a person’s speech, expressed by specific pronunciation of words, frequent use of terms and constructive phrases.
• Mental deformation. Representatives of the same specialty are often similar in the properties required for a given profession. In the process of professional development, the similarity and at the same time the difference from people of another specialty intensifies. When communicating, a doctor can assess the health of the interlocutor, a culinary specialist can advise recipes and comment on treats. Mental deformation stimulates an increase in the subjective importance of the employee's specialty.

Professional personality deformations are:

• general professional, characteristic of employees in certain areas;
• special, formed by specific specialists;
• typical, due to the psychological specifics of the work;
• professional individual deformation manifested in a specific person of any specialty and caused by the rapid development of skills.

Professional personal deformation in some can be revealed by unreasonable aggression and inflated self-esteem, in others - indifference, in others - a decrease in professional qualities.

Changes in the psyche are associated with a person’s character, experiences of conflicts, crises and psychological tension, dissatisfaction with the social environment and personal relationships, and reduced productivity of his work activity.

Risks of occurrence

It is believed that professional deformation develops as a result of the fact that an employee gets used only to a specific social role and cannot go beyond it. In this case, specialists in the field of psychology record personality changes. A person ceases to feel the boundary between work and personal life, and continues to fulfill his duties at home. Assessing the degree of one’s own professional deformation is almost impossible, since this requires introspection and a critical examination of one’s behavior from the outside. In such a situation, loved ones and those around you should help.

The risk of deformation can be predicted based on certain circumstances:

• there is a fear of losing normal contact with colleagues, work, and professional skills;
• the topics of conversation are reduced to discussing problems of work activity;
• achievements and success are associated only with work activity;
• personal relationships are limited, there is contact only with colleagues;
• the expression of emotions is suppressed, and the expression of emotions on the part of colleagues is not perceived;
• a conversation with this person resembles communication with a doctor, investigator or teacher (depending on the profession), since a person transfers the professional terminology of communication into everyday life;
• the interests of this person are limited only to activities in his professional field;
• all loved ones and relatives are perceived as part of the work.

Forms of manifestation

Consideration of the problem at specific examples allows you to determine the manifestations of changes in the human psyche as a result of professional deformation.

For teachers, the problem manifests itself in the fact that they begin to look for flaws in students’ work and become picky. In the family circle, they continue to look at the behavior and activities of others, mentally rating them. Gradually, they begin to evaluate the actions and behavior of strangers whom they may meet on the street.

The designer can join the conversation of even strangers and start asking professional questions or recommending something. He can argue with another person, explain the intricacies of different styles, advise how to choose the right furnishings for an apartment, etc.

Deformity in medical workers is detected by automatically assessing a person’s health when meeting them on the street or shaking hands. He can look for symptoms of a supposed illness when he observes a cough, pale skin, ask questions, mentally compiling a history of a friend. After asking questions, he begins to give advice and recommends getting examined.

When deformation is observed in a stylist, its manifestation is his appraising gaze, with which he determines the taste, style and flaws in the appearance of an acquaintance or even a random passerby. He can mentally transform a person to his liking, and also out loud suggest that he change his image, dress in some style that he finds more suitable, or not use a certain cosmetic product.

Causes

The professional development of an employee cannot but be accompanied by continuous personal development. But over time, stabilization occurs. Experts call such stages stages of professional stagnation. It occurs when an employee reaches certain heights in a specific field of activity, but he has to perform monotonous work using monotonous techniques. Over time, stagnation becomes the cause of deformation; the individual becomes so attached to his specialty that he is able to fulfill only this role in society.

The following facts can serve as conditions for the formation of professional deformation.

• Monotonous acts that lead an employee to a psychological trait. A person will have great difficulty adapting to new requirements if circumstances change.
• Motivation for choosing a specialty. It may be the desire to acquire a certain social status and power, provided that the person does not achieve the assigned goal.
• High expectations at the beginning of professional activity, which are not justified during the period of service.

Under the influence of these factors, the individual begins to manifest professional deformation. The following are the reasons for its manifestation:

• stress, excessive nervousness;
• fatigue as a result of many years of work;
• stereotypical work;
• reluctance to continue working in this field as a result of awareness of the wrong choice of specialty: for some, understanding comes immediately after entering work, for others it takes years;
• lack of understanding of the goals of one’s work activity;
• age-related changes: in youth, the choice of specialty satisfied the requirements of the individual, over time, the performance of work began to be automatic;
• conflicts in the team, violations of disciplinary norms;
• devoting oneself to a specialty with an absolute lack of understanding of the merits of colleagues;
• excessive self-confidence;
• impossibility of future professional growth.

There can be many more reasons, each of them can lie both in the chosen profession and in personal qualities individual, i.e. have an individual character.

Correction

To avoid the development of deformation, its first manifestations should be noticed in a timely manner and eliminated.

You need to start by independently checking how much deformation is manifested. It is recommended to take tests with the help of which a person can find out which social roles he needs to pay more attention to, which aspects of social activity need to be given more time. This makes it possible to independently analyze your own condition and find out what qualities are missing to fully fit into ordinary life, what life spheres were forgotten, pushed into the background by work.

There are also reclamation options;

• completing trainings aimed at personal and career growth;
• increasing socio-psychological awareness;
• taking advanced training courses and moving up the career ladder;
• independent identification of problems and development of personal mechanisms for their correction;
• self-correction of professional changes and adjustment of one’s own qualities;
• preventive measures for professional maladjustment of an employee with little experience.

Proper and correct resolution of professional difficulties will contribute to the development of personality, preventing the occurrence of deformation.

State educational institution of higher vocational training

Tula State Pedagogical University named after. L.N. Tolstoy

Psychology faculty

Discipline "Fundamentals of career guidance"

ABSTRACT

on the topic

PROFESSIONAL PERSONALITY DEFORMATIONS

Performed:

3rd year student of group “A”

Faculty of Psychology

Petrova Svetlana Yurievna

Checked:

Zaenchik Vladimir Mikhailovich,

Ph.D., professor

Introduction

Chapter 1. Personality and profession

Chapter 2. Factors contributing to professional deformation

Chapter 3. Levels of professional deformation. Vocational rehabilitation

Chapter 4. The phenomenon of mental burnout

Bibliography

Introduction

Work is a way to achieve physical and moral health, a means of individual success, a source of unlimited self-satisfaction and self-improvement. That is, work has a positive effect on the human psyche.

However, many years of professional activity cannot be constantly accompanied by its improvement and continuous professional development of the individual. The conditions and nature of work in some types of work (especially in “person-to-person” professions) have a traumatic effect on the psyche. Periods of stabilization are inevitable. Professional fatigue appears, psychological barriers arise, the repertoire of ways to perform activities is depleted, professional skills and abilities are lost, and performance decreases.

It can be stated: many years of performing the same activity in established ways leads to the development of professionally undesirable qualities and professional disadaptation of specialists. That is, at the stage of professionalization in many types of professions, professional deformations develop.

Chapter 1. Personality and profession

The problem of the influence of profession on personality periodically arises in the focus of attention of researchers. In the works of many outstanding psychologists, psychological questions about the connection between the category of activity and personality are quite fully explored.

An analysis of the literature shows that the professional role has a multifaceted impact on the personality, making certain demands on a person, thereby transforming his entire appearance. Daily solution for many years typical tasks not only improves professional knowledge, but also forms professional habits, a certain way of thinking and communication style.

General education, professional knowledge and skills, general and special abilities, socially significant and professionally important qualities constitute the professional development potential of a specialist. Realization of potential depends on many factors.

Real life scenarios are very diverse. Depending on the ratio of the rates of various types of development of A.A. Bodayev identifies the following scenarios for the development of an adult.

1.Individual development is significantly ahead of personal and professional development. This ratio reflects the weak development of a person as an individual and as a worker. There are no interests, inclinations or abilities for any activity, professional preparedness is not expressed, low level ability to work.

2.A person’s personal development is more intensive than individual and professional. This manifests itself in careful attitude to the environment, people, objects of material and spiritual culture, attachment to family, etc. Physical health and professional achievements are in the background.

.Professional development dominates over the other two “hypostases” of a person. The priority of professional values, total absorption in work are the characteristics of the so-called workaholics.

.Relative correspondence of the pace of individual, personal and professional development. This is the optimal ratio that determines the realization, the “fulfillment” of a person’s self.

When a person enters the space of work, he directly encounters new conditions for him. An objective need for adaptation arises, as a result of which the norms and values ​​of the environment are adopted, as well as its transformation. As a result of the interaction between the individual and the profession, an active qualitative transformation by the individual of his inner world occurs, which leads to a fundamentally new structure and way of life - creative self-realization in the profession, as well as personal and professional development.

But, following the objective laws of development as such, it should be noted that the result of any development is both positive and negative consequences. The genesis of the human personality in professional activity can be considered both as development, enrichment, and as derogation, degradation, deformed existence. On the one hand, a person improves in this type of activity, acquires certain skills and abilities, etc., on the other hand, various negative phenomena arise, which are combined in the concept of professional deformation.

Chapter 2. Factors contributing to professional deformation

Professional deformations are a negative socio-psychological phenomenon that appears in the form of various personal behavioral manifestations that have a destructive impact on the process and result of professional activity, on interaction with other participants in this process.

A profession can gradually significantly change a person's character. At the same time, the choice of profession is initially associated with the inclinations and attitudes of the individual. Therefore, when people of a certain profession have some common character traits, their specificity may be due not only to the secondary influence of the professional role, but also to the fact that it is chosen by people who initially have certain inclinations.

It is very important to get an answer to the following question: how does professional deformation occur? In relation to ontogenesis, the main paths are known: maturation, learning, creativity of the subject himself. In this case, maturation will correspond to the spontaneous development of professional deformation, being essentially a continuation of individual development. An analogue of training will be directed psychological impact various people in order to reproduce the qualities and properties already known and required in professional activities. The creative activity of the subject of mental development in the aspect of professional deformation is manifested in the consciousness of new patterns of psychological experience that contribute to the development of personality deformation. The formation of new aspects of mental experience is a contradictory process; it leads not only to progress in mental development, but also to the loss of some positive and the emergence of negative opportunities. A person develops a very specific way of action, an idea, and a logic of behavior. But the problem is that the process of action, activity, labor has its own logic, which is not subject to either imagination or consciousness. The adjusted plan of the individual is embodied in something different from the original, and behavior is sometimes radically different from the generally accepted one.

The development of professional deformations is promoted (Klimov B.S.):

1.Changes in work motivation.

2.Emerging stereotypes of thinking, behavior and activity.

.Emotional tension of professional work (appears: irritability, anxiety, nervous breakdowns, etc.)

.Monotony, monotony, rigidly structured nature of work.

.Loss of prospects for professional growth.

.Reduced intelligence level of a specialist

.Various accentuations of a person’s character, woven into the fabric of an individual style of activity.

.Age-related changes associated with aging:

A) Social aging:

· Motivation is being rebuilt;

· Intellectual processes weaken;

· The emotional sphere changes;

· Maladaptive forms of behavior, etc. arise.

b) Moral and ethical aging:

· Obsessive moralizing;

· Skeptical attitude towards youth subculture;

· Contrasting the present with the past;

· Exaggeration of the merits of one’s generation, etc.

V) Professional aging:

· Failure to accept innovations;

· The value of the experience of your generation;

· Difficulties in mastering new means of labor;

· Reducing the pace of professional functions, etc.

Chapter 3. Levels of professional deformation

Vocational rehabilitation

The already mastered technology, as it were, forces a person in a strictly defined way to relate to a variety of situations in life, to himself, to other people, to the world and existence in general. Mastered professional and simply vital technological abilities clearly dictate to the individual the choice of specific effective motives of behavior. We love to do only what we know how to do. Interiorized technologies of activity also shape our transformative attitude towards the world.

Having mastered a certain technology of his work, a professional begins to consider it the only possible and correct one. He is ready, while earning money, to eternally reproduce already familiar ways of working, to use only familiar means and procedures.

Any profession initiates the formation of professional personality deformations. The most vulnerable are socionomic professions of the “person-person” type. The nature and severity of professional deformations depend on the nature, content of the activity, the prestige of the profession, work experience and individual psychological characteristics of the individual.

Among employees social sphere, law enforcement agencies, doctors, teachers, managers, the following deformations are often encountered: authoritarianism, aggressiveness, conservatism, social hypocrisy, behavioral transfer, emotional indifference.

There are 4 levels of professional deformation

Levels of deformationManifestation of deformation 1. General professional(makes workers of the same profession recognizable, similar) Invariant personality traits: · Teachers have a syndrome of “edification” (the desire to teach, educate); · Lawyers have a syndrome of “asocial perception” (every person is perceived as a potential violator); · Managers have a “permissiveness” syndrome (violation of professional and ethical standards) 1. Special professionalEach specialty has its own composition of deformations: · The prosecutor has an indictment; · The investigator has legal edification; · A lawyer has legal resourcefulness; · The therapist has threatening diagnoses; · The surgeon is cynical. 2. Professional-typological(features of temperament, abilities, character) Professional and personal complexes develop: a) deformations of professional orientation: · Distortion of activity motivation, · Restructuring of value orientations, · Pessimism, · Skeptical attitude towards innovations; b) deformations based on any abilities: · For example, intellectual, communicative - a complex of superiority, narcissism, etc. arises; c) deformation based on character traits: · For example, lust for power, dominance, etc. gives rise to indifference, etc. 3. Personalized(features of the employee) As a result of the merging of personality with professionally important qualities, super-qualities or accentuations develop: · Over-responsibility; · Hyperactivity; · Labor fanaticism.

The consequences of all these deformations are:

· Psychological tension, conflicts, crises;

· Decrease in the productivity of an individual’s professional activity;

· Dissatisfaction with life and social environment.

As work experience increases, the “emotional burnout” syndrome begins to affect itself, which leads to emotional exhaustion, fatigue and anxiety. There is a deformation of the emotional sphere of the personality. Psychological discomfort provokes illness and reduces satisfaction with professional activities.

Thus, professional activity contributes to the formation of deformations - qualities that have a destructive effect on work and professional behavior. Professional personality deformation is a type of occupational disease, they are inevitable, but for some it leads to loss of qualifications, for others to indifference, for others to groundless overestimation of self-esteem and aggressiveness, and for the majority it leads to a search for means of professional rehabilitation.

What are the possible routes to vocational rehabilitation? Let's name the main ones:

increasing socio-psychological competence and autocompetence;

diagnosis of professional deformations and development of individual strategies for overcoming them;

completing training for personal and professional growth;

reflection on professional biography and development of alternative scenarios for further personal and professional growth;

prevention of professional disadaptation of a novice specialist;

mastering techniques, methods of self-regulation of the emotional-volitional sphere and self-correction of professional deformations;

advanced training and transition to a new qualification category or to new position.

Chapter 4.The phenomenon of mental burnout

professional deformation personality mental

One of the first domestic researchers who came to grips with the problem of burnout is V.V. Boyko. In his opinion, emotional burnout is acquired in human life. This “burnout” differs from various forms of emotional rigidity, which is determined by organic reasons - the properties of the nervous system, the degree of mobility of emotion, and psychosomatic disorders.

V.V. Boyko defines emotional burnout as a psychological defense mechanism developed by an individual in the form of a complete or partial exclusion of emotions (a decrease in their energy) in response to traumatic influences.

For him, burnout is an acquired stereotype of emotional, most often professional, behavior, partly a functional stereotype that allows a person to dose and economically spend energy resources.

Thus, V.V. Boyko considers burnout itself to be constructive, and its consequences are dysfunctional, when “burnout” negatively affects the performance of professional activities and relationships with partners. At the same time, emotional burnout leads to professional deformation of the individual.

In contrast to professional deformation, mental burnout can be attributed to a case of complete regression of professional development (the personality as a whole is destroyed, negatively affecting the effectiveness of work).

Mental burnout is a syndrome that includes the following groups of symptoms:

1.Emotional: feeling of emotional emptiness; vague feeling of restlessness and anxiety; feeling of disappointment; decreased level of enthusiasm; irritability; touchiness; indifference; powerlessness, etc.

2.Psychosomatic: increased fatigue; feeling of exhaustion; frequent headaches; gastrointestinal disorders; lack of appetite and overeating, which leads to excess or underweight; sleep disturbance, insomnia, etc.

.Violation cognitive processes activities: difficulty concentrating; rigidity and rigidity in thinking; concentration on details; inability to make decisions, etc.

.Rejection of professional activity: dislike of work; thoughts about changing jobs, professions, etc.

.Violation of social connections: increasing avoidance of contacts with people; distancing from clients and colleagues; desire for solitude; condemnation of the client, cynical attitude towards him, etc.

Burnout and job dissatisfaction have an impact on family relationships - the number of family conflicts.

Mental burnout is more often observed among workers who work with people and provide assistance to them (insensitivity, inhumane attitude towards clients coming for treatment or to receive social services).

· Tensions between client and employee. A professional, dealing with human problems with a negative emotional charge, takes it upon himself;

· High level of employee aspirations. Considering work to be highly meaningful, experiencing failure to achieve goals and feeling unable to make a significant contribution, one burns out. Work, which was the meaning of life for an individual, causes him disappointment.

· Incorrect organization of work: large volume, routine, narrowed area of ​​contacts with clients, lack of independence in work, etc.

Burnout as an independent component is not limited to stress, fatigue, and depression.

Individual personality characteristics have a significant influence:

· Passive resistance tactics;

· External “locus of control”;

· Low degree of personal endurance;

·Aggressiveness;

·Anxiety.

So O. Lavrova emphasized the following:

1.Burnout syndrome is a psychophysiological and mental exhaustion caused by interpersonal communication and professional work overload.

2.Burnout affects all areas of personal development, having a devastating impact.

.The syndrome occurs individually for each specialist, depending on the characteristics of his personality and professional activities.

.The syndrome develops in stages, starting with work addiction and ending with existential emptiness.

.Since burnout deforms the entire personality of a specialist, methods to prevent it should affect all areas of personal development.

The presence of psychological burnout makes people look for various ways overcoming it.

There are many ways to prevent burnout, but we’ll just mention the following:

1.Commitment to personal growth.

2.Expanding your horizons on the problem, i.e. awareness; creation of new projects.

.Cultivation of other interests not related to the profession; reading literature for pleasure.

.Clear separation of personal life and professional activities.

.Expanding your social contacts; having friends from other professions.

.Rationalization of your professional activities; participation in seminars and conferences.

.Hobbies that give you pleasure.

Methods for restoring mental health are very broad. Their choice is determined by the individual characteristics of the employee.

The most accessible are the following.

Autotraining . It is based on the technique of immersion and a state of relaxation and self-hypnosis, due to which one masters the skills of voluntarily inducing feelings of warmth, heaviness, peace, and relaxation. As a result, basic psychophysiological processes are normalized and activated.

Relaxation. This is a voluntary or involuntary state of rest, relaxation, associated with complete or partial muscle relaxation.

Meditation. This is intense, penetrating reflection, immersion of the mind in a subject, idea and process, achieved by concentrating on one object and eliminating all factors that distract attention.

Four conditions must be met.

1.Calm dive, i.e. lack of external incentives.

2.Comfortable position, because muscle tension can interfere with the process.

.Presence of an object of concentration.

.Passive installation, i.e. one allows the meditative process to arise instead of controlling it.

Bibliotherapy. Influencing a person through specially selected literature in order to normalize or optimize his psyche. This allows you to: a) through emotional experiences of their content, enrich your inner world, understand its complexity and uniqueness;

b) understand and accept the inner world of people around you;

c) stimulate the processes of pleasure, peace, and tension relief.

Summary

A profession can significantly change a person’s character, leading to both positive and negative consequences. The difficulty in dealing with professional deformation lies in the fact that, as a rule, it is not recognized by the employee and its manifestations are detected by other people.

When engaging in labor activity, you need to know and imagine:

· possible consequences this phenomenon;

· treat your shortcomings more objectively, trying to compensate for them;

· determine a new place of work taking into account your past professional experience and personal qualities.

Bibliography

1. Beznosov S.P. Professional deformation. St. Petersburg: Rech, 2004. - 272s.

2.Volkov B.S. Fundamentals of vocational guidance. Moscow: Academic project: Mir Foundation, 2007. - 333 p.

Zeer E.F. Psychology of professions: textbook / 4th edition, revised and expanded. - Moscow: Academic project: Mir Foundation, 2006. - 336 p.

Zeer E.F. Psychological factors of professional deformation. www.elitarium.ru

Povoisky V.P. Collection of scientific works “Professional deformation and problems of professionalism.” 2001, No. 2/ www.psymanager.ru

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It is known that work has a positive effect on the human psyche. In relation to different types of professional activities, it is generally accepted that there is a large group of professions, the performance of which leads to occupational diseases of varying severity. Along with this, there are types of work that are not classified as harmful, but the conditions and nature of professional activity have a traumatic effect on the psyche.

Researchers also note that many years of performing the same professional activity leads to the appearance of professional fatigue, the emergence of psychological barriers, an impoverished repertoire of ways to perform activities, loss of professional skills, and decreased performance. It can be stated that at the stage of professionalization in many types of professions, including the military profession, professional deformations develop.

The relevance of research .

Professional deformations violate the integrity of the individual, reduce its adaptability, and negatively affect labor productivity. Certain aspects of this problem are highlighted in the works of S.P. Beznosov, N.V. Vodopyanova, R.M. Granovskaya, L.N. Korneeva. Researchers note that in most to a greater extent Person-to-person professions are subject to professional deformations. This is due to the fact that communication with another person necessarily includes its return impact on the subject of this work. It should be noted that professional deformations are expressed differently among representatives of different professions. At the same time, we were unable to find publications in the scientific and methodological literature concerning this problem in relation to the profession of a military man. This was the reason for conducting this study.

The work was marked target : to summarize existing ideas about professional personality deformations and their manifestations in the profession of a military man.

To achieve this goal, the following were decided tasks:

• characterize the concept of “professional deformation”, determine the psychological factors of their occurrence;
• to study one of the types of professional deformations - “emotional burnout” and the features of its manifestation in the activities of military personnel.

As object of study The professional activities of military personnel were highlighted.

Subject of research There were professional deformations in the activities of officers of the Voronezh VVAIU (VI).

Theoretical and methodological basis of the study.

The complexity and insufficient knowledge of the problem of professional personality deformation, the presence of interdisciplinary aspects in it, led to a combination of special and general psychological methodology.
The initial methodological position that determined the theoretical and practical foundations of the study is the fundamental position of psychological science on the relationship between personality and activity, the activity approach to understanding the mechanisms of personality formation.
The methodological basis was the concept of humanism, its interpretation within the framework of humanistic psychology and pedagogy, systems approach to the study of professional activity and work environment.

Practical significance of the study

The point is that the results of the study can contribute to a qualitative improvement in work with personnel and be taken into account when developing regulations that regulate the moral, psychological and ethical aspects of the activities of officers, depending on the specifics of their official activities.

1. THE CONCEPT OF PROFESSIONAL DEFORMATIONS

1.1. Normal professional developmentand signs of deformation

E.I. Rogov proposes to distinguish, along with the progressive direction of personality development, the regressive one.

If we rely on the criteria of progress and regression in the development of complexly organized entities of a systemic nature, developed in the “tectology” of A.A. Bogdanov (1989), then progress is characterized by an increase in the level of energy resources of this integrity, an expansion of the forms of its activity and points of contact with the external environment, increasing the stability of integrity in a changing environment.

Regression - This direction of development of integrity (in this study - the personality of a professional), which is accompanied by a decrease in energy resources, a narrowing of the field and forms of its activity, and a deterioration in the stability of integrity in relation to the influences of a changing environment.

An example of the norm of human development in professional activity is given by the idea of ​​​​the properties of the subject of labor and the model, the characteristics of his consciousness as a subject of labor that are desirable for society.

The development of a person’s personality and psyche during the period of professionalism is subject to the general laws of developmental psychology, which include the position of the determining role of the activity performed by the subject, its substantive and functional content. But at the same time, the activity and environment itself do not have a direct impact on the personality of the subject and his psyche, but an indirect one. internal conditions subject (semantic assessment by the subject of the activity being performed, his abilities, state of health, experience) (Rubinshtein S.L., 1999).

Normal work - this is work that is safe and healthy, free from non-economic coercion, highly productive and of high quality, meaningful. Such work is the basis for the normal professional development of the personality of its subject. An employee engaged in it has the opportunity for self-realization, shows his best qualities and develops comprehensively and harmoniously. The ideal of progressive personal development in work presupposes that a person masters increasingly complex types of professional tasks and accumulates experience that remains in demand by society. A person receives satisfaction from the labor process, its result, he participates in constructing the concept of labor, its implementation, in improving the means of activity, in production relations; he can be proud of himself, the social status he has achieved, and can realize the ideals approved by society, oriented towards humanistic values. He successfully overcomes the constantly emerging development contradictions and conflicts. And this progressive development occurs gradually, giving way to regressive development, when periods of decompensation (due to age-related changes and diseases) begin to predominate.

It is also useful to rely on a certain standard of mental health for an adult of working age, which includes the following guidelines: reasonable independence, self-confidence, ability to self-govern, high performance, responsibility, reliability, perseverance, ability to negotiate with work colleagues, ability to cooperate, ability to obey work rules, show friendliness and love, tolerance towards other people, endurance to frustration of needs, a sense of humor, the ability to rest and relax, organize leisure time, find a hobby.

Really existing types of professional work often actualize some aspects of the psyche and personality (and thereby stimulate their development), while others turn out to be unclaimed and, according to the general laws of biology, their functioning decreases. Prerequisites arise for the formation of preferentially developed and defective qualities of the subject of labor, which E.I. Rogov proposes to designate as professionally determined personality accentuations . They manifest themselves to varying degrees and are characteristic of the majority of workers involved in the profession and who have worked in it for a long time.

More pronounced changes in mental functions and personality under the influence of professional activity are usually called professional deformations. In contrast to accentuations, professional deformations are assessed as an option for unwanted negative professional development.

E.I. Rogov proposes to call professional deformations of personality such changes that arise under the influence of professional activities performed and are manifested in the absolutization of work as the only worthy form of activity, as well as in the emergence of rigid role stereotypes that are transferred from the labor sphere to other conditions when a person is not able to adjust his behavior adequately to changing conditions.

An example is the case from real life. One general, who had adopted an authoritarian style of communication with subordinates as quite effective during combat operations, transferred this style to interactions with close people in the family and even to the situation of defending his own dissertation. So, during a meeting of the dissertation council, he ordered his subordinate to read out for him a report on the content of the dissertation work completed and answer questions. It took the chairman a lot of effort to get the dissertation author to agree to independently present and defend his work.

From the point of view of O.G. Noskova, one can consider the phenomena of professional deformation of personality as adequate, effective and therefore progressive within the framework of the professional activity performed by the subject, but at the same time regressive, if we mean human life in a broad sense, in society. The basis for such an understanding may be that, on the one hand, professional deformations of the individual are determined by the labor process, and on the other hand, they have intra-subjective prerequisites. Thus, most psychologists who have studied the manifestations of professional personality deformation consider these phenomena to be a negative option for personality development, noting that they are generated by the adaptation of the subject of labor to professional activity and are useful within its framework, but these adaptations turn out to be inadequate in other, non-professional, spheres of life . A negative assessment of professional personality deformations (PDD) is based on the fact that they allegedly lead to a violation of the integrity of the individual, reducing its adaptability and stability in general in social life.

Perhaps the phenomenon of PDL manifests itself with particular vividness among those people for whom the professional role they perform is overwhelming, but they, having increased ambitions, claims to status, and success, do not refuse this role.

The very term “deformation” suggests that changes occur in a certain previously established structure, and not in the initial formation of personality and its characteristics in ontogenesis. That is, the phenomena of changes in the existing structural and functional characteristics of the psyche and personality that arise as a consequence of long-term professional functioning are discussed here. In other words, professional deformations can be understood as the result of fixation (preservation) of previously formed (in the part of life that preceded the development of a profession and professional activity) functional mobile organs and means of organizing human behavior that were changed under the influence of work activity. We are talking about the deformation of attitudes, dynamic stereotypes, thinking strategies and cognitive schemes, skills, knowledge and experience, professionally oriented semantic structures of a professional. But in such a broad understanding, professional deformations are a natural, normal, ubiquitous and widespread phenomenon, and the severity of its manifestations depends on the depth of professional specialization, on the degree of specificity of work tasks, the objects used, tools and working conditions (for workers in the first age category). half of the maturity period). These essentially normal phenomena that accompany professional development in its ascending, progressive line may be subject to age restrictions in the second period of maturity, reinforcing the need for selectivity in forms of activity, compensatory manifestations and other forms of adaptive behavior described above.

The area of ​​phenomena of professional personality deformation covers phenomena that are different in nature, and these phenomena, as determined by professional activity, should probably also be distinguished from neurotic, suboptimal personality development, which A.F. Lazursky called in his “Classification of Personalities” “perverted types personalities”, and K. Leongard “accentuated personalities”.

At the same time, it would be useful to distinguish professional deformations of the personality and psyche from mixed forms of not always effective adaptation to work that develop during a period of pronounced decrease in the employee’s internal resources under the influence of age and illness.

1.2. Main types of professional deformations

E.I. Rogov proposes to distinguish several types of professional personality deformation:

general professional deformities, which are typical for most people engaged in this profession. They are determined by the invariant features of the means of labor used, the subject of work, professional tasks, attitudes, habits, and forms of communication. From our point of view, this understanding of PDL is identical to “professional accentuations of the individual.” The more specialized the object and means of labor are, the more the amateurism of the beginner and the professional limitations of the worker immersed only in the profession are manifested. K. Marx in Capital called the gross manifestations of such narrow, flawed personality development “professional idiocy.” Acceptable and inevitable for persons committed to their profession, general professional deformations of the image of the world and professional consciousness were discovered by E.A. Klimov as typical for representatives of professions that differ in subject content. Examples: representatives of the socionomic type of professions perceive, distinguish and adequately understand the behavioral characteristics of individual people to a much greater extent compared to professionals of the technonomic type. And even within the framework of one profession, for example a teacher, one can distinguish typical “Russianists”, “physical educators”, “mathematicians”;

typological deformations, formed by merger personal characteristics and features of the functional structure of professional activity (thus, among teachers one can distinguish organizational teachers and subject teachers, depending on the degree of expression of their organizational abilities, leadership qualities, and extroversion);

individual deformations, caused primarily by personal orientation, and not by the person’s work activity. A profession can probably create favorable conditions for the development of those personality qualities, the prerequisites for which existed even before the start of professionalization. For example, an officer in his activities acts as an organizer, a leader, vested with power and authority in relation to subordinates, often unable to defend himself from unfair accusations or aggression. Among officers there are often people who remain in this profession because they have a strong need for power, suppression, and control over the activities of other people. If this need is not balanced by humanism, a high level of culture, self-criticism and self-control, such officers turn out to be clear representatives of professional personality deformation.

So, along with the influence of long-term implementation of special professional activities on the unique development of the personality of the subject of labor, which manifests itself in the majority of people involved in the profession (a variant of general professional deformation of personality, mental functions), the individual personal characteristics of the subject of labor can also play an important role. E.I. Rogov attaches particular importance to such individual qualities as: rigidity of nervous processes, a tendency to form rigid stereotypes of behavior, narrowness and overvaluation of professional motivation, defects in moral education, relatively low intelligence, self-criticism, reflection.

In people prone to forming rigid stereotypes, thinking becomes less and less problematic over time, and the person turns out to be increasingly closed to new knowledge. The worldview of such a person is limited by the attitudes, values ​​and stereotypes of the professional circle, and also becomes narrowly professionally oriented.

E.I. Rogov believes that professional deformations can be caused by the peculiarities of the motivational sphere of the subject of labor, consisting in subjective over-importance of work activity with his low functional-energy capabilities, as well as with relatively low intelligence.

A variant of professional and personal deformation is personal-role dissonance , consisting in the fact that a person finds himself “out of place,” i.e. he undertakes to perform a professional role for which he is not ready and is not capable. Realizing this shortcoming, the subject of labor nevertheless continues to work in this role, but reduces his work activity, he develops a dual personality, he cannot fully realize himself in the profession.

The problem of professional personality deformations in domestic psychology began to be developed relatively recently, and most of the work has been carried out to date on the material of pedagogical work, as well as types of work related to the penal system for criminal offenders and the services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. PDL manifests itself, for example, in the fact that people called upon to control convicts, to be an example of statehood, of high civic qualities, adopt cliches of speech of offenders, manner of behavior, and sometimes a system of values.

1.3. Ppsychological determinantsprofessional deformations

The whole variety of factors that determine professional personal deformations can be divided into three groups:

• objective, related to the socio-professional environment: socio-economic situation, image and nature of the profession, professional-spatial environment;
• subjective, determined by personality characteristics and the nature of professional relationships;
• objective-subjective, generated by the system and organization of the professional process, the quality of management, and the professionalism of managers.

Let us consider the psychological determinants of personality deformations generated by these factors. It should be noted that the same determinants appear in all groups of factors.

1. The prerequisites for the development of professional deformations are already rooted in the motives for choosing a profession. These are like conscious motives: social significance, image, creative character, material goods, and unconscious: the desire for power, dominance, self-affirmation.

2. The triggering mechanism for deformation is the destruction of expectations at the stage of entering an independent professional life. Professional reality is very different from the idea formed by a graduate of a vocational educational institution. The very first difficulties prompt the novice specialist to search for radical methods of work. Failures, negative emotions, and disappointments initiate the development of professional maladaptation of the individual.

3. In the process of performing professional activities, a specialist repeats the same actions and operations. In typical working conditions, the formation of stereotypes in the implementation of professional functions, actions, and operations becomes inevitable. They simplify the performance of professional activities, increase its certainty, and facilitate relationships with colleagues. Stereotypes give stability to professional life and contribute to the formation of experience and an individual style of activity. It can be stated that professional stereotypes have undoubted advantages for a person and are the basis for the formation of many professional destructions of the individual. Stereotypes are an inevitable attribute of professionalization of a specialist; the formation of automated professional skills and abilities, the formation of professional behavior are impossible without the accumulation of unconscious experience and attitudes. And there comes a moment when the professional unconscious turns into stereotypes of thinking, behavior and activity. But professional activity is replete with non-standard situations, and then erroneous actions and inadequate reactions are possible. When the situation changes unexpectedly, it often happens that actions begin to be carried out according to individual conditioned stimuli, without taking into account the actual situation as a whole. Then they say that automatisms act contrary to understanding. In other words, stereotyping is one of the advantages, but at the same time it introduces great distortions into the reflection of professional reality.

4. Psychological determinants of professional deformations include different shapes psychological protection. Many types of professional activity are characterized by great uncertainty, causing mental tension, often accompanied by negative emotions and destruction of expectations. In these cases, the protective mechanisms of the psyche come into play. Of the huge variety of types of psychological defense, the formation of professional destruction is influenced by denial, rationalization, repression, projection, identification, alienation.

5. The development of professional deformations is facilitated by the emotional intensity of professional work. Frequently repeated negative emotional states With increasing work experience, a specialist’s frustration tolerance decreases, which can lead to the development of professional destruction.

The emotional intensity of professional activity leads to increased irritability, overexcitation, anxiety, and nervous breakdowns. This unstable mental state is called the “emotional burnout” syndrome. This syndrome is observed in teachers, doctors, managers, and social workers. Its consequence may be dissatisfaction with the profession, loss of prospects for professional growth, as well as various types of professional destruction of the individual.

6. In the studies of E.F. Zeer, it was established that at the stage of professionalization, as the individual style of activity develops, the level of professional activity of the individual decreases, and conditions arise for stagnation of professional development. The development of professional stagnation depends on the content and nature of work. Monotonous, monotonous, rigidly structured work contributes to professional stagnation. Stagnation, in turn, initiates the formation of various deformations.

7. The development of a specialist’s deformities is greatly influenced by a decrease in his level of intelligence. Studies of the general intelligence of adults show that it decreases with increasing work experience. Of course, there are age-related changes here, but the main reason lies in the peculiarities of normative professional activity. Many types of work do not require workers to solve professional problems, plan the work process, or analyze production situations. Unclaimed intellectual abilities gradually fade away. However, the intelligence of workers engaged in those types of work, the implementation of which is associated with solving professional problems, is maintained at a high level until the end of their professional life.

8. Deformations are also due to the fact that each person has a limit to the development of the level of education and professionalism. It depends on social and professional attitudes, individual psychological characteristics, emotional and volitional characteristics. The reasons for the formation of a development limit can be psychological saturation with professional activity, dissatisfaction with the image of the profession, low wages, and lack of moral incentives.

9. Factors that initiate the development of professional deformations are various accentuations of the personality’s character. In the process of many years of performing the same activity, accentuations are professionalized, woven into the fabric of the individual style of activity and transformed into professional deformations of a specialist. Each accentuated specialist has his own ensemble of deformations, and they are clearly manifested in their activities and professional behavior. In other words, professional accentuations are an excessive strengthening of certain character traits, as well as certain professionally determined personality traits and qualities.

10. The factor that initiates the formation of deformities is age-related changes associated with aging. Experts in the field of psychogerontology note the following types and signs of human psychological aging:

• socio-psychological aging, which is expressed in the weakening of intellectual processes, restructuring of motivation, changes in the emotional sphere, the emergence of maladaptive forms of behavior, an increase in the need for approval, etc.;
• moral and ethical aging, manifested in obsessive moralizing, a skeptical attitude towards the youth subculture, contrasting the present with the past, exaggerating the merits of one’s generation, etc.;
• professional aging, which is characterized by immunity to innovations, canonization of individual experience and the experience of one’s generation, difficulties in mastering new means of labor and production technologies, a decrease in the pace of performing professional functions, etc.

Researchers of the phenomenon of old age emphasize, and there are many examples of this, that there is no fatal inevitability of professional aging. This is true. But the obvious cannot be denied: physical and psychological aging deforms a person’s professional profile and negatively affects the achievement of the peaks of professional excellence.

2. “EMOTIONAL BURNOUT” AS A KIND PROFESSIONAL DEFORMATION

Burnout syndrome is a phenomenon of personal deformation and is a multidimensional construct, a set of negative psychological experiences associated with prolonged and intense interpersonal interactions characterized by high emotional intensity or cognitive complexity. This is a response to prolonged stress in interpersonal communications.

2.1. “Emotional burnout” as a psychological phenomenon

Scientific and practical interest in burnout syndrome is due to the fact that this syndrome is nothing more than a direct manifestation of the ever-increasing problems associated with the well-being of employees, the efficiency of their work and the stability of the organization. The concern of military psychologists about the burnout of military personnel can be explained by the fact that it begins unnoticed, and its consequences in extreme conditions of military activity can cost human lives.

Currently, there is no common view on the structure and dynamics of burnout syndrome. Single-component models view it as a combination of physical, emotional, and cognitive exhaustion. According to the two-factor model, burnout is a construct consisting of affective and attitudinal components. The three-component model manifests itself in three groups of experiences:

- emotional exhaustion (feelings of emptiness and powerlessness);

- depersonalization (dehumanization of relationships with other people, manifestation of callousness, cynicism or even rudeness);

- reduction of personal achievements (underestimation of one’s own achievements, loss of meaning and desire to invest personal efforts in the workplace).

Despite the differences in approaches to measuring burnout, it can be concluded that it is a personal deformation due to emotionally difficult or tense relationships in the “person-person” system, developing over time

There are various definitions of burnout. In accordance with the model of Maslach and Jackson, it is considered as a response to long-term professional stress of interpersonal communications.

Emotional exhaustion manifests itself in feelings of emotional overstrain and in a feeling of emptiness, exhaustion of one’s own emotional resources. The person feels that he cannot devote himself to work as before. There is a feeling of “muffledness”, “dullness” of emotions, and in especially severe manifestations, emotional breakdowns are possible.

Depersonalization is the tendency to develop a negative, callous, cynical attitude towards recipients. Contacts become impersonal and formal. Emerging negative attitudes may initially be hidden and manifest themselves in internal pent-up irritation, which over time breaks out in the form of outbursts of irritation or conflict situations.

A reduction in personal achievements manifests itself as a decreased sense of competence in one’s work, dissatisfaction with oneself, a decrease in the value of one’s activities, and a negative self-perception in a professional sense. Noticing negative feelings or manifestations in oneself, a person blames himself, his professional and personal self-esteem decreases, a feeling of personal inadequacy appears, and indifference to work.

In this regard, burnout syndrome is considered by a number of authors as “professional burnout,” which makes it possible to study this phenomenon in the aspect of professional activity. It is believed that such a syndrome is most typical for representatives of social or communicative professions - the “person-to-person” system (these are medical workers, teachers, managers of all levels, consulting psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, representatives of various service professions).

The term burnout was first introduced by the American psychiatrist H. Fredenberger in 1974 to characterize the psychological state healthy people who are in intensive and close communication with clients (patients) in an emotionally charged atmosphere when providing professional assistance. Burnout originally meant a state of exhaustion with a feeling of worthlessness.

Since the appearance of this concept, the study of this phenomenon has been difficult due to its substantive ambiguity and multicomponent nature. On the one hand, the term itself was not carefully defined, so the measurement of burnout could not be reliable, on the other hand, due to the lack of appropriate measurement tools, this phenomenon could not be described in detail empirically.

Currently, there is a wide debate on the relationship between such concepts as stress and burnout. Despite the growing consensus on the concept of the latter, there is unfortunately still no clear distinction between the two concepts in the literature. Although most researchers define stress as a discrepancy in the person-environment system or as a result of dysfunctional role interactions, there has traditionally been little agreement on the conceptualization of occupational stress. Based on this, a number of authors consider stress as general concept, which can become the basis for studying a number of problems.

Many researchers believe that burnout is a separate aspect of stress, so it is defined and studied primarily as a pattern of responses to chronic work stressors. The burnout reaction begins more as a result (consequence) of demands, including stressors of an interpersonal nature. Thus, it represents a consequence of occupational stress, in which a pattern of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal achievement is the result of a variety of work demands (stressors), especially of an interpersonal nature.

Burnout as a consequence of professional stress occurs in cases where a person’s adaptive capabilities (resources) to overcome a stressful situation are exceeded.

N.V. Grishina considers burnout as a special human condition resulting from professional stress, an adequate analysis of which requires an existential level of description. This is necessary because the development of burnout is not limited to the professional sphere, but manifests itself in various situations of human life; painful disappointment in work as a way of finding meaning colors the entire life situation.

Numerous foreign studies confirm that burnout results from professional stress. Poulin and Walter, in a longitudinal study of social workers, found that increased levels of burnout were associated with increased levels of occupational stress (Poulin and Walter, 1993). Rowe (1998) found that people experiencing burnout have higher levels of psychological stress and less resilience.

Many scientists note that the rapidly changing business environment is becoming increasingly stressful. A study of 3,400 workers by Lawlor (1997) found that 42% of respondents felt “burnt out” or “exhausted” at the end of the workday; 80% said they work too much, 65% said they are forced to work at too fast a pace. According to Northwestern National Life, the percentage of workers who report that their job is “very or extremely stressful” is 40%, and 25% of respondents consider it their number one stressor.

Workplace stress is closely linked to burnout. For example, a study of 1,300 employees at ReliaStar Insurance Company of Minneapolis (Lawlor, 1997) found that employees who believed their jobs were highly stressful were twice as likely to experience burnout as those who did not think so. According to the American Institute of Stress, the “cost” of job stress and burnout is employee turnover, absenteeism, low productivity, and rising health benefits.

Based on the results of a number of studies, Perlman and Hartman (1982) proposed a model in which burnout is viewed in terms of occupational stress. The three dimensions of burnout reflect three major symptomatic categories of stress:

• physiological, focused on physical symptoms(physical exhaustion);
• affective-cognitive, focused on attitudes and feelings (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization);
• behavioral, focused on symptomatic types of behavior (depersonalization, reduced work productivity).

According to Perlman and Hartman's model, individual characteristics and the work and social environment are important in the perception, impact and evaluation of stress in conjunction with effective or ineffective coping with a stressful situation. This model includes four stages.

The first reflects the degree to which the situation contributes to stress. There are two most likely types of situations in which it occurs. The employee's skills and abilities may be insufficient to meet perceived or actual organizational requirements, or the job may not meet the employee's expectations, needs, or values. In other words, stress is likely if there is a contradiction between the subject of work and the work environment.

The second stage involves the perception and experience of stress. It is known that many situations that contribute to it do not lead to what people think they are experiencing. stressful state. The movement from the first stage to the second depends on the resources of the individual, as well as on role and organizational variables.

The third stage describes the three main classes of reactions to stress (physiological, affective-cognitive, behavioral), and the fourth represents the consequences of stress. Burnout, as a multifaceted experience of chronic emotional stress, correlates precisely with the latter, representing the result of a reaction to stress.

Variables significantly associated with burnout are divided into organizational, role and individual characteristics that influence:

• the subject's perception of his professional role and organization;
• response to this perception;
• the organization's reaction to the symptoms manifested by the employee (at the third stage), which can then lead to the consequences indicated at the fourth stage (Table 1).

It is from this point of view that the multidimensional nature of “burnout” must be understood. Since the organization reacts to such symptoms, various consequences are possible, such as dissatisfaction with work in the organization, staff turnover, the desire to minimize business and interpersonal contacts with colleagues, decreased productivity, etc.

There are close connections between the personal significance of production tasks and productivity, intention to leave work and the integral indicator of “burnout”, absenteeism and depersonalization; poor relationships with family and friends and depersonalization, psychosomatic illnesses and emotional exhaustion, meaningful work and personal achievements, alcohol consumption and productivity, etc.

Table 1 Variables significantly associated with burnout

K. Maslach identified factors on which the development of burnout syndrome depends:

• individual limit, the ceiling of the ability of our “emotional self” to resist exhaustion; self-preservation, counteract burnout;
• internal psychological experience, including feelings, attitudes, motives, expectations;
• negative individual experience in which problems, distress, discomfort, dysfunction and/or their negative consequences are concentrated.

Many researchers view burnout as a relatively stable phenomenon. In a longitudinal study of 879 social workers (Poulin, Walter, 1993), it was shown that almost 2/3 of the subjects had the same level of burnout as at the beginning of the study (one year ago). For approximately 22% of respondents it was low, for 17% it was medium, and for 24% it was high; For the rest, the level of “burnout” has changed. In 19% it decreased, in 18% it increased.

This study is also interesting because the number of subjects whose burnout levels decreased or increased was approximately the same. Although there is evidence in the literature that it tends to increase with duration of work, the results of the mentioned study show that this is not always true and the process of professional burnout can be reversible. Such information seems encouraging for the development and implementation of rehabilitation measures for people with high levels of burnout.

What symptoms help identify incipient burnout in workers? Currently, researchers have identified over 100 of these. Symptoms signaling the development of burnout can be:

• decreased motivation to work;
• sharply increasing job dissatisfaction;
• loss of concentration and increase in errors;
• increasing carelessness in interactions with clients;
• ignoring safety requirements and procedures;
• weakening performance standards;
• lowering expectations;
• violation of work deadlines and an increase in unfulfilled obligations;
• looking for excuses instead of solutions;
• conflicts in the workplace;
• chronic fatigue;
• irritability, nervousness, anxiety;
• distancing from clients and colleagues;
• increase in absenteeism, etc.

According to other sources, the symptoms of burnout are divided into the following categories:

1. Physical

• fatigue;
• feeling of exhaustion;
• sensitivity to changes in environmental indicators;
• asthenization;
• frequent headaches;
• gastrointestinal disorders;
• being overweight or underweight;
• dyspnea;
• insomnia.

2. Behavioral and psychological

• the work becomes harder and harder, and the ability to do it becomes less and less;
• an employee comes to work early and leaves late;
• shows up late for work and leaves early;
• takes work home;
• has a vague feeling that something is wrong (feeling of unconscious anxiety);
• feels bored;
• decreased level of enthusiasm;
• feels resentful;
• experiences a feeling of disappointment;
• uncertainty;
• guilt;
• feeling of not being needed;
• easily arising feelings of anger;
• irritability;
• pays attention to details;
• suspicion;
• a sense of omnipotence (power over the patient’s fate);
• rigidity;
• inability to make decisions;
• distancing from colleagues;
• increased sense of responsibility for other people;
• growing avoidance (as a coping strategy);
• general negative attitude towards life prospects;
• alcohol and/or drug abuse

It is important to remember that burnout is a syndrome or group of symptoms that appear together. However, all of them together do not appear in anyone at the same time, because burnout is a purely individual process.

Perlman and Hartman conducted a comparative analysis and synthesis of research published from 1974 to 1981 on burnout. As a result, the authors came to the conclusion that most publications are descriptive studies and only a few contain empirical material and statistical analysis of data.

2.2. Social-psychological, personaland occupational risk factorsmental burnout

Any employee can become a victim of burnout. This is due to the fact that a variety of stressors are present or may appear at work in each of the organizations. Burnout syndrome develops as a result of a combination of organizational, professional stress and personal factors. The contribution of one or another component to the dynamics of its development is different. Stress management experts believe that burnout is contagious, like an infectious disease. Sometimes you can find “burning out” departments and even entire organizations. Those who are subject to this process become cynics, negativists and pessimists; By interacting with others at work who are under the same stress, they can quickly turn an entire group into a collection of burnouts.

As N.V. Vodopyanova notes, burnout is most dangerous at the beginning of its development. A burnt-out employee, as a rule, is almost unaware of his symptoms, so his colleagues are the first to notice changes in his behavior. It is very important to recognize such manifestations in a timely manner and to properly organize a support system for such employees. It is known that a disease is easier to prevent than to treat, and these words are also true for burnout. Therefore, special attention should be paid to identifying those factors that lead to the development of this syndrome and taking them into account when developing preventive programs.

Initially, people potentially susceptible to burnout included social workers, doctors and lawyers. The burnout of these specialists was explained by the specific features of the so-called “helping professions.” To date, not only the number of symptoms of professional burnout has significantly expanded, but also the list of professions exposed to such danger has increased. This list includes teachers, military personnel, law enforcement officers, politicians, sales personnel and managers. As a result, “from a price for complicity”, the professional burnout syndrome has turned into a “disease” of workers in social or communication professions.

The specificity of the work of people in these professions is different in that there is a large number of situations with high emotional intensity and cognitive complexity of interpersonal communication, and this requires a specialist to make a significant personal contribution to establishing trusting relationships and the ability to manage emotional tension business communication. Such specificity allows us to classify all the above-mentioned specialties into the category of “professions of the highest type” according to the classification of L.S. Shafranova (1924).

While studying the professional maladaptation of teachers, T.V. Formanyuk formulated the characteristics of teaching work, with the help of which it is possible to describe the specifics of the activities of all professions that contribute to the burnout of people employed in them. Among them:

• the constant feeling of novelty inherent in work situations;
• the specifics of the labor process are determined not so much by the nature of the “object” of labor, but by the characteristics and properties of the “producer” himself;
• the need for constant self-development, since otherwise “there is a feeling of violence against the psyche, leading to depression and irritability”;
• emotional intensity of interpersonal contacts;
• responsibility for wards;
• constant inclusion of volitional processes in the activity.

Speaking about the emotional intensity of interpersonal contacts, characteristic of the professions under discussion, it is noted that it may not be constantly very high, but has a chronic nature, and this, in accordance with the concept of “chronic everyday stress” by R. Lazarus, becomes especially pathogenic.

Initially, the vast majority of research on the phenomenon of burnout concerned various categories medical personnel, social workers, psychologists and teachers. Recently, judging by publications and sites on the Internet, attention is beginning to be paid to managers and sales representatives. Let's consider the results of some studies containing information about factors contributing to the development of mental burnout.

Social similarity/comparison as a risk of burnout

Dutch scientists B. P. Bunk, W. B. Schaufeli and J. F. Ubema studied burnout and insecurity in nurses in relation to the need for social similarity/comparison. The authors found that emotional exhaustion and a reduced level of self-esteem (reduced personal achievements) have significant connections with the desire for social similarity. At the same time, subjects with a high level of burnout and low levels of self-esteem and self-esteem avoid contacts with more successful subjects and situations associated with social comparison, i.e. situations of social comparison or evaluation for certain individuals act as strong stress factors that have a destructive effect on their personality.

Based on L. Festinger's theory of social similarity, it was suggested that it is possible to master stress through managing the need for social similarity/comparison. A number of other studies also note the leading role of “social comparison” processes in coping with professional stress. However, at present, this issue has not yet been adequately developed either theoretically or methodologically.

Experience of injustice

Of particular interest is research on burnout in the light of equity theory. In accordance with it, people evaluate their capabilities relative to others depending on the factors of reward, price and their contribution. People expect fair relationships in which what they put in and get out of them is proportionate to what other individuals put in and get out.

In professional activities, relationships are not always built on the basis of the factor of fairness. For example, the relationship between physicians and patients is considered primarily “complementary”: the physician is obligated to provide attention, care, and “investment” more than the patient. Consequently, the two parties structure their communication from different positions and perspectives. As a result, unequal relationships are established, which can cause professional burnout for doctors.

A study of Dutch nurses (Van Yperen, 1992) showed that feelings of injustice were an important determinant of burnout. Those nurses who believed that they invested more in their patients than they received in return in the form of positive feedback, improved health and gratitude, had high levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal achievement. Bunk and Schaufeli (1993) established a close connection between the injustice factor and the burnout syndrome: the more pronounced the experiences of injustice, the stronger the professional burnout.

Social insecurity and injustice

Researchers also name feelings of social insecurity, uncertainty about socio-economic stability and other negative experiences associated with social injustice as factors contributing to the development of the syndrome. B.P. Bunk and V. Horens noted that in tense social situations, most people have an increased need for social support, the absence of which leads to negative experiences and possible motivational and emotional deformation of the individual.

Social support as protection against the effects of stress

Social support has traditionally been viewed as a buffer between occupational stress and the dysfunctional consequences of stressful events because it influences a person's confidence in coping and helps prevent the damaging effects of stress. Seeking social support is the ability in a difficult situation to find support from others (family, friends, colleagues) - a sense of community, practical assistance, information. Social support is significantly associated with psychological and physical health, regardless of whether life and work stress are present or not (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993).

Research shows that social support is associated with levels of burnout. Employees who have high levels of support from managers and coworkers are less likely to burn out.

The results of a one-year longitudinal study (Poulin and Walter, 1993) also showed a relationship between social support and burnout. Thus, social workers whose level of burnout increased experienced an increase in the level of work stress, and also noted a decrease in social support from management. Social workers whose burnout levels decreased over the course of the year did not experience such changes.

There is also evidence of an inverse relationship between social support and burnout (Ray and Miller, 1994). Researchers have found that high levels of the former are associated with greater emotional exhaustion. This is explained by the fact that work stress leads to the mobilization of social support resources to overcome burnout.

According to G. A. Roberts, support can be ineffective when it comes from family and colleagues, rather than those who can actually change the work or social situation. These types of social support help in general, but may not solve a specific problem. At the same time, intraorganizational sources of support (from administration and supervisor) were associated with low levels of burnout. The data obtained raise the question of differentiating forms of social and psychological support for coping with life and professional stress.

It must be admitted that different types supports have mixed effects on burnout. Leiter (1993) studied the effects of personal (informal) and professional support on burnout. It turned out that the first of the two prevented the reduction of personal achievements, and the professional one played a dual role, reducing and increasing burnout. On the one hand, it was associated with a stronger sense of professional success, and on the other, with emotional exhaustion. It was also found that the greater the personal support, the lower the risk of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.

Similar connections have been made regarding professional and administrative support in the organization. The greater it is, the less often employees experience depersonalization and reduction of personal achievements. Another study examined three types of organizational support: skill utilization, peer support, and supervisor support. The first is positively related to professional achievements, but negatively - with emotional exhaustion. Peer support is negatively associated with depersonalization and positively associated with personal achievement. Support from a supervisor was not significantly associated with any of the components of burnout.

Metz (1979) conducted comparative study teachers who identified themselves as either “professionally burnt out” or “professionally renewed.” Most men aged 30-49 considered themselves to be in the first group, and most women of the same age were in the second. “Professionally renewed” teachers perceived administrative support and relationships with colleagues as a significant source of such “renewal” compared to the group who considered themselves “burned out.”

Among medical college teachers, a high level of burnout is associated with a heavy classroom load and student management, and a low level is associated with support from colleagues, an open leadership style that involves participation in decision making, and time spent on research work and clinical practice.

In summary, empirical evidence suggests a complex interaction between social support and burnout. Sources of the first can influence the components of the second in different ways. The positive effect is due to both the nature of the support and the willingness to accept it.

Apparently, there are significant individual differences in the dynamics of this need in stressful situations and the strategies of overcoming behavior associated with it. Knowledge of the features of the interaction between social support and burnout syndrome should be taken into account when developing technologies for coping with stress based on the use of various types of social support.

For the professional adaptation of specialists and maintaining their professional longevity, in our opinion, the development and use of various types social, professional and personal support to prevent burnout syndrome.

Job dissatisfaction as a risk of burnout

Gunn (1979) examined the personality characteristics of social service workers that are important for understanding burnout. He found that it was not identical to job dissatisfaction. More severe burnout is associated with the unattractiveness of work in the organization: the higher the attractiveness, the lower its risk. At the same time, employees with high levels of self-concept strength are more positively oriented towards clients and are less susceptible to burnout.

Burnout is negatively associated with the so-called psychological contract (loyalty to the organization), because “burned out” employees tend to view the organization negatively (as an enemy) and psychologically distance themselves from it. Thus, emotionally exhausted employees treat colleagues and clients in an isolated, cynical manner; they are not confident that their work provides them with a sense of satisfaction with their own achievements. The person feels as if they have little or no control over the work situation and their confidence in their ability to solve work-related problems decreases.

Chronic burnout can lead to psychological detachment not only from work, but also from the organization as a whole. A “burnt out” employee emotionally distances himself from his work activity and transfers his inherent feelings of emptiness to everyone who works in the organization, avoiding all contact with colleagues. Initially, this withdrawal may take the form of absenteeism, physical isolation, or increased breaks as the worker avoids contact with organizational members and consumers. Finally, if burnout continues, he will constantly avoid stressful situations, giving up his position, work in the company, or even his career. Emotionally burnt out professionals are often unable to cope with work-related emotional stress, and when the syndrome develops to a sufficient extent, they also exhibit other negative manifestations. For example, high correlations of burnout with low employee morale, absenteeism and high staff turnover were found (K. Maslach).

According to N. Vodopyanova, the attractiveness of organizational culture and work in an organization has a restraining effect on the development of burnout processes.

Burnout and pay

When studying burnout syndrome among consulting psychologists, it was found that psychologists in private practice had higher salaries and lower levels of burnout, in contrast to colleagues working in various health care institutions. Such differences in burnout are obviously due not so much to the nature of the work as to the amount of payment for skilled labor.

The researchers also found a positive relationship between client workload and confidence in personal achievement, and no significant correlations between workload, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The authors believe that an increase in the number of clients is perceived by consultants as an opportunity to help more people, and in private practice, to earn money more money; it increases feelings of professional efficacy and satisfaction with one's own achievements and reduces the risk of burnout (particularly emotional exhaustion and depersonalization).

A study among managers of production and commercial departments of a large Russian shipbuilding enterprise demonstrated the dependence of the risk of burnout on the remuneration system. It was found that with commission pay, managers are less likely to show symptoms of burnout than with an official salary system, which may be explained by the presence of greater freedom and the need for creativity with commission pay.

The influence of age, length of service and satisfaction

career burnout

There are complex relationships between the degree of burnout, age, experience and the degree of satisfaction with professional growth. According to some reports, professional growth , providing a person with an increase in his social status, reduces the degree of burnout. In these cases, from a certain point, a negative correlation may appear between experience and burnout: the greater the first, the less the second. In case of dissatisfaction career growth Professional experience contributes to employee burnout.

The influence of age on the burnout effect is controversial. Some studies have found that not only older people, but also younger people, are predisposed to burnout. In some cases, the state of the latter is explained by the emotional shock that they experience when confronted with reality, which often does not correspond to their expectations regarding professional activity.

The positive correlation of burnout with age, which some studies show, is due to its (age) correspondence to professional experience. However, if we're talking about about the turn of 45-50 years, then age begins to have an independent influence, as a result of which the direct relationship often turns into a reverse one. The appearance of a negative correlation is explained by age-related revaluation of values ​​and modification of the hierarchy of motives during personal growth.

Westerhouse (1979) studied the effects of tenure and role conflict in 140 junior teachers working in private schools. He found that the frequency of role conflict is an important variable in predicting burnout, although there was no significant positive relationship between teacher experience and burnout. Obviously, the risk factor for burnout is not the duration of work (as experience), but dissatisfaction with it, the lack of prospects for personal and professional growth, as well as personal characteristics that influence the tension of communication at work.

Career as a source of psychological danger

Specialists from the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences studied the relationship between career aspirations and emotional burnout of employees. For the main group, managers with real career advancement were selected (47 people in total). All of them had at least 4-5 years of work experience, and they started their careers as ordinary employees.

During the study, the “Career Anchors” questionnaire by E. Shein and the method of diagnosing the level of emotional burnout by V.V. Boyko were used, as well as a specially developed questionnaire to identify the gender and age characteristics of the subjects, their place in the organization, their actual career and its subjective assessment.

• For men who are employees, compared to male entrepreneurs, the type of career orientation does not affect the level of emotional burnout. This is probably due to the fact that the implementation of any career orientation largely depends on the employer. Among male entrepreneurs, a significant negative correlation was revealed between professional competence, management skills and the overall level of emotional burnout, as well as its “exhaustion” phase: the more pronounced the orientation towards professionalism, the lower the risk of emotional burnout.
• Among women entrepreneurs, a career orientation towards mastering management negatively correlates with the level of emotional burnout, which may be associated with satisfying the desire for excellence, described by A. Adler, through management activities. If a person controls the activities of others, it means that, according to his subjective assessment, he is superior to them in some way.
• The female sample of entrepreneurs is characterized by a negative correlation between career orientation to service, the general indicator of emotional burnout syndrome and its “stress” phase. When implementing a strong service orientation, a person tends to ignore his needs, which also leads to an increase in internal tension and, obviously, predisposes to burnout.
• In women, significant positive correlations were revealed between the level of emotional burnout and such career orientations as stability and integration of lifestyles. The inability to satisfy the need for stability and an optimal balance between career, personal life and self-development contributes to the growth of emotional stress.
• The influence of career orientation “management” on emotional burnout depends on its actual implementation. Among students, there was a positive correlation between these factors, while samples of people working in management showed that this relationship was the opposite.

Researchers have come to the general conclusion that the lack of opportunity to realize most career aspirations leads to an increase in the level of emotional burnout, just as any frustration of needs leads to an increase in the level of internal tension.

Gender and burnout

Gender differences are clearly evident when considering individual components of the syndrome. Thus, it was found that men are more likely to high degree depersonalization and a high assessment of one’s professional success, and women are more susceptible to emotional exhaustion.

There is also a gender difference in the subjective assessment of stress factors. Thus, female teachers consider “difficult students” to be the strongest stress factors, while male teachers consider the bureaucracy inherent in schools and a large amount of “paper” work. However, other studies do not confirm the existence of correlations between the components of burnout and gender.

Personal risk factors for burnout

Among the personal factors contributing to burnout, such indicators of predisposition to stress reactions as the ratio externality And internality, implying the degree of responsibility of a person for his life, type A behavior preferred by man strategies for overcoming crisis situations. An external “locus of control” correlates with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and the use of a passive avoidance strategy correlates with the development of emotional exhaustion and a reduction in personal achievements. Moreover, the greater the burnout, the more often passive, asocial and aggressive models of overcoming behavior are used.

The strategy of a person’s overcoming behavior in a situation of stress is one of the most important factors that determines the likelihood of an individual developing psychosomatic diseases. Strategies to suppress emotions often increase the risk of pre-disease or disease states. However, the ability to manage emotional manifestations, and sometimes suppress them, is a necessary “skill” for people in communicative (social) professions. Once it becomes habitual, it often carries over into non-work life. Thus, in studies of medical and hygienic aspects of the lifestyle of doctors, it was revealed that the desire to suppress emotions is characteristic of every fourth doctor.

How an employee copes with stress is also important for the development of burnout. Research shows that the most vulnerable are those who react to it aggressively, unrestrainedly, want to resist it at any cost, and do not give up competition. Such people tend to underestimate the complexity of the tasks they face and the time required to solve them. The stress factor causes them to feel depressed, despondent, due to the fact that they cannot achieve their goals (the so-called type A behavior).

Type A Personality There are two main features: extremely high competitiveness and a constant feeling of time pressure. Such people are ambitious, aggressive, strive for achievements, while pushing themselves into tight time frames.

2.3. Features of the manifestation of the syndrome"burnout" among military personnel

Professional burnout syndrome is an unfavorable reaction to work stress, including psychological, psychophysiological and behavioral components. As the consequences of troubles at work worsen, a person’s moral and physical strength is depleted, he becomes less energetic; the number of contacts with others decreases, which in turn leads to an increased experience of loneliness. People who are “burnt out” at work lose motivation, develop indifference to work, and deteriorate the quality and productivity of their work.

Those people who have a stable and attractive job that offers the opportunity for creativity, professional and personal growth are less likely to experience burnout; have diverse interests and promising life plans; by type of life attitude - optimistic, successfully overcome life's adversities and age-related crises; have an average degree of neuroticism and relatively high extroversion. The risk of burnout is reduced with high professional competence and high social intelligence. The higher they are, the lower the risk of ineffective communications, the greater the creativity in situations of interpersonal interaction and, as a result, the less satiety and fatigue during communication.

The specifics of the work of an educational officer are characterized by the fact that there are a large number of situations with high emotional intensity and cognitive complexity of interpersonal communication, which requires a significant personal contribution to establishing relationships and the ability to manage the emotional tension of business interaction.

In the course of this study, the degree of development of burnout syndrome among course officers of the VVVAIU was assessed. 42 officers took part in it. For the survey, a methodology developed based on the model of K. Maslach and S. Jackson was used. The questions were adapted to the specifics of the educational officer’s activities.

The results of the study showed that the level of emotional exhaustion in 73% of respondents could be assessed as high, in 19% as average, and in only 8% as low. Respondents indicated feelings of emotional overstrain, fatigue, emptiness, and exhaustion of their own emotional resources. Moreover, it is paradoxical that emotional exhaustion turned out to be more characteristic of officers who have been in office for less than two years, while those who have been in office for more than 5 years demonstrated an average and low level of exhaustion.

The average level of depersonalization in the sample can be characterized as average. 11% of respondents had a high level of depersonalization, 69% had an average level, and 20% had a low level. It should be noted that such signs of depersonalization as coldness, callousness, and cynicism are more characteristic of officers occupying the positions of course commanders compared to course officers.

A low level of reduction in personal achievements was noted among 14% of respondents. This group of officers indicates a decreased sense of their own competence at work, feelings of dissatisfaction with themselves, and a decrease in the value of their own activities. An average level of reduction in personal achievements was recorded in 32% of respondents, a high level - in 54% of respondents. The analysis revealed a direct relationship - the longer an officer remains in his position, the lower the level of reduction in personal achievements.

CONCLUSION

The study allowed us to draw a number of general conclusions:

Any professional activity already at the stage of mastery, and in the future, when performed, deforms the personality. Many human qualities remain unclaimed. As professionalization progresses, the success of an activity begins to be determined by an ensemble of professionally important qualities that have been “exploited” for years. Some of them are transformed into professional undesirable qualities; At the same time, professional accentuations gradually develop - overly expressed qualities and their combinations that negatively affect the activities and behavior of a specialist.

Sensitive periods for the formation of professional deformations are crises of professional development of the individual. An unproductive way out of a crisis distorts professional orientation, contributes to the emergence of a negative professional position, and reduces professional activity.

Any profession initiates the formation of professional personality deformations. However, the most vulnerable are socionomic professions of the “person-to-person” type. The nature and severity of professional deformations depend on the nature, content of the activity, the prestige of the profession, work experience and individual psychological characteristics of the individual.

Among social workers, law enforcement agencies, doctors, teachers, and military personnel, the following deformations are most common: authoritarianism, aggressiveness, conservatism, social hypocrisy, behavioral transfer, emotional indifference.

As work experience increases, the “emotional burnout” syndrome begins to affect itself, which leads to emotional exhaustion, fatigue and anxiety. Emotional deformation of the personality occurs. In turn, psychological discomfort can provoke illness and reduce satisfaction with professional activities.

The results obtained indicate that for the majority of officers surveyed, the level of emotional exhaustion can be assessed as high, which is expressed in a feeling of emotional overstrain, fatigue, emptiness, and exhaustion of one’s own emotional resources. The level of depersonalization on average can be characterized as average, and the level of reduction of personal achievements in more than half of the sample is noted as high.

Occupational deformities are a type of occupational disease and are inevitable. the main problem specialists in this case is to prevent them and overcome technologies.

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