relationship between feelings of alienation and burnout in social work, The

NUMEROUS THEORETICAL ARTICLES have investigated the phenomenon of burnout (Cherniss, 1980; Paine, 1982; Jayaratne & Chess, 1984). Similarly, the literature is replete with essays on the subject of alienation (Schaehtel, 1961; Marcuse, 1970; Josephson & Josephson, 1962). Although the two phenomena have been theoretically linked (Karger, 1981), no known empirical studies have examined their relationship and no instruments have been developed to conduct such an investigation. This pilot study was conducted to ascertain whether a relationship exists between alienation and burnout in a sample of social workers in the State of Wisconsin.

BURNOUT

The term burnout has become a catch phrase for manifestations of stress, personal deficiencies, and various maladies that permeate work life. Maslach (1982), a pioneer in burnout research, defined burnout as a syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment in response to chronic emotional strain from dealing extensively with troubled people. Other researchers have delineated related somatic symptoms such as gastrointestinal problems, recurrent headaches, fatigue, and insomnia (Lachman, 1983). Psychological and emotional symptoms include difficulty in interpersonal relationships and intimacy, compulsivity about rules and schedules, a tendency to blame others for difficulties, poor self-esteem, and a tendency to withdraw (Pines & Maslach, 1978; Cherniss, 1980).

Ratliff (1988) suggested that no commonly accepted definition of burnout exists and that empirical studies of burnout suffer from a lack of generalizability. He further found that most of the suggested remedies for reducing the symptoms of burnout have no basis in empirical findings. Pines and Aronson (1988) indicated that their conception of burnout has changed, suggesting that the cause of burnout is in some ways existential in that it is related to the human need to ascribe meaning to life-when meaningfulness in the workplace wanes, burnout becomes more likely. Interestingly, a sense of meaninglessness is one manifestation of alienation.

Various symptoms linked to burnout have been associated with the individual's inability to cope with life and work stressors. Consequently, prescriptions for change also focus on the individual. Managers and some clinicians have prescribed individual and group treatment for personality disorders, motivational exercises, and learning of new strategies to allow practitioners to perform more efficiently. Many organizations routinely offer exercise programs, stress-management training, health-awareness programs, and time-management programs in an effort to keep the problem focused on individuals and thus minimize the attention focused on organizational factors (Patrick, 1984).

Recent studies have included a systems perspective in looking at the problem of burnout by considering conditions in the workplace, autonomy on the job, and various social factors (Arches, 1985, 1991; Walsh, 1987; Karger, 1981; Cherniss, 1980; Paine, 1982). However, workers, not organizations, are described as being "burned out," and as long as the problem is symptomatically described by means of such terms, the workplace milieu will avoid scrutiny and the so-called shortcomings of individual workers will remain the focus of remediation. As Karger (1981) suggested, the relationship between the worker and his or her work environment should be the unit of analysis to avoid ascribing causality to the personal characteristics of victims who are forced to deal with maladies in the workplace. Karger argued that understanding and reexamining the concept of alienation may provide a more accurate fix on the origin of burnout symptoms. Empirical confirmation of Karger's thesis has not been established. Until such empirical work is accomplished, burnout will remain focused on individuals' symptoms. The present study attempts to verify the relationship between alienation and burnout.

ALIENATION

The concept of alienation has been discussed and debated for the past century. Hegel believed that individuals felt a fundamental division or alienation between their subjective and objective selves. Durkheim understood alienation to be a product of an individual's isolation in a disintegrating society. Sartre linked alienation with the existential dilemma, and Marx believed that in capitalist societies alienation arose in the workplace, where individuals were powerless to control the conditions and purposes of their work.

Keefe (1984), writing about alienation and social work practice, suggested that alienation can be best understood as a condition in capitalist society whereby the individual experiences self and significant aspects of the physical and social environment as estranged and out of his or her control. Note that in this definition the notion of the self is connected to the concept of alienation.

Seeman'S (1959) analysis of alienation included five specific dimensions:

*Powerlessness: The sense that one can control neither the conditions of work nor the purposes of one's labor.

*Meaninglessness: The sense that one's work and life narrative are devoid of meaning.

*Normlessness: The sense that there are no superordinate rules to which all subscribe.

*Isolation: The sense that each individual struggles alone and that no sense of community exists.

*Self-estrangement: The sense that one's labors have no relationship to one's sense of self.

In Seeman's study, the five dimensions of alienation and the concept of self allow a closer examination of the phenomenon of alienation and its relationship to burnout.

The purpose of the study described in this article was to ascertain whether a relationship exists between characteristics of alienation and of burnout. A study of alienation and burnout must concentrate on subjects who deal extensively with human beings who are troubled or having problems. Social workers fit this criterion (Maslach, 1982).

A pilot study was undertaken to gather demographic data; test instruments were developed to operationalize various aspects of alienation and to use existing measures of burnout to establish the existence of a relationship between the concepts of alienation and burnout. This study provides a basis for studying the extent of alienation and burnout within a population of social workers and offers data useful for subsequent research on the topic and further refinement of the instruments.

METHODOLOGY

In 1988, surveys were mailed to 930 social workers practicing in the State of Wisconsin. The survey was confined to social workers practicing in one state because potential respondents were all bound by common laws and regulations. Of the 930 surveys mailed, 506 (more than 54%) were returned. The instrument used to survey social workers included four sections: (1) the Maslach Burnout Inventory, (2) personal demographic questions and questions about practice sites and client populations, (3) questions related to decision making in the workplace, and (4) a trial instrument developed originally to capture aspects of the five domains of alienation: normlessness, powerlessness, meaninglessness, self-estrangement, and isolation.

To develop the alienation submeasure, 26 questions relating to each of the five domains were developed, tested for face validity with colleagues who have expertise in clinical social work, and grouped into scales. The response categories of the Maslach Burnout Inventory) were simplified and shortened into a five-point Likert scale. The range of responses was from one to five, with five indicating the highest or most frequent feelings of burnout. Cronbach'S alpha coefficient of internal consistency reliability of the revised instrument was .89.

The alienation submeasure used a four-point Likert scale with possible responses of strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. The customary neutral response choice was omitted to force a choice between agreeing or disagreeing with a statement. The possible scores on the alienation submeasure ranged from one to four, with one being the strong agreement with a statement about alienation and four signifying strong disagreement. The alpha coefficients for the submeasures were as follows: meaninglessness, 80; estrangement, .71; powerlessness, .74; isolation, >.68; and normlessness, .45. The alpha coefficients for all domains of alienation except normlessness were in the accepted range for reliability. The score for normlessness fell below the accepted level; findings on that dimension of alienation were deleted from the analysis and are not reported.

When this survey was conducted, Wisconsin did not require state licensure or registration of social workers, which consequently precluded the use of a random sample of all social workers in practice in the state. Four groupings of social workers were sampled: (1) members of the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), (2) nursing home social workers, (3) hospital social workers, and (4) social workers working in child and family welfare agencies.

Subjects were selected in two ways. A sample of NASW members was obtained by randomly selecting subjects from a list of all current members. The NASW sample, primarily MSWs, included social workers residing in all areas in the state, of varying age ranges, both genders, and practicing in disparate types of settings and with various client populations.

The child and family welfare, hospital, and nursing home social workers were sampled by means of a different methodology. Agencies and practice settings from all geographic portions of the state and from large urban areas, suburbs, smaller cities, towns and villages, and rural areas were identified from lists of licensed agencies. Potential participating agencies were identified by means of a stratified quota sampling methodology. After these agencies were identified, the directors of social services were contacted to secure their agreement to participate in the study. Those directors who agreed to participate were asked to distribute questionnaires to all social workers under their direction. Small rural hospitals and nursing homes, wherein previous studies had indicated only one social worker was employed, were the exception to this method. The social worker in each of those facilities was sent a survey instrument. Almost all nursing home social workers and the vast majority of social workers in rural agencies were at the bachelor's-degree level.

Agreement to participate was readily obtained from all agencies contacted. All social services directors in agencies with more than one social worker were mailed survey instruments and return envelopes equal to the number of their employees. In the event that some social workers in hospitals, child and family welfare agencies, or nursing homes were also among those randomly sampled from the list of NASW members, respondents were instructed to return only one survey instrument. The method used to select agencies and sample populations helped ensure that survey sites for each type of agency were representative of different regions of the state and that all individuals employed in those agencies were equally likely to be subjects. Statistical analysis of the survey results was accomplished by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.

FINDINGS

The data in Table 1 reflect the mean responses with acceptable reliability scores for the four dimensions of alienation and the means on the revised Maslach Burnout Inventory for each of the sample populations. The number of responses for each of the sample groups were as follows: NASW sample = 201, child and family welfare social workers = 65, hospital social workers = 116, and nursing home social workers = 124. The response rate for the randomly selected NASW sample was slightly lower than those for the other three sample groups, which used the stratified quota sampling method. The stratified quota sampling method allowed for some personalization of the survey mailings, which may have positively influenced the response rate. Table 1 omitted)

All sample populations reported low to medium levels of burnout as measured by the modified Maslach Burnout Inventory. Of the four sample populations, the NASW sample group reported the highest levels of burnout; the other three sample populations' scores were lower but relatively similar. The strongest affirmative responses of the four domains of alienation were powerlessness and isolation; this pattern was consistent among the sample populations. Self-estrangement and meaninglessness were the weakest of the four domains of alienation.

The findings suggest that, on average, the sample populations found meaning in their work and were not markedly self-estranged but did feel a sense of powerlessness and isolation. Hospital social workers indicated the most positive response to statements about powerlessness, and nursing home social workers showed the least sense of powerlessness. Despite the difference in responses between these two forms of institutional social work, powerlessness received the most positive response from all subjects. From the means of their responses, nursing home social workers, primarily baccalaureate-level social workers, felt the least isolated but the most self-estranged. This finding suggests that they are involved in providing patient care in concert with a small group of employees of other disciplines but are expected to perform tasks that may not conform to their sense of self or their values. Other differences between sample groups and their responses in individual domains of alienation await further study.

The findings indicate that responses to statements about the dimensions of alienation are not consistent within a sample group. A high or low response in any one dimension does not ensure a similar response in other dimensions, nor does the mean response in one dimension appear to be the predictor for any sample group of scores on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Although none of the mean responses was markedly strong, the variation was notable and worthy of further examination.

The four alienation scales were correlated with the Maslach Burnout Inventory results to ascertain whether a significant correlation existed between burnout as measured by the Maslach inventory and the four dimensions of alienation. See Table 2 for the Pearson correlation coefficients. (Table 2 omitted)

All four dimensions of alienation were significantly correlated with burnout. The negative correlation coefficients reflected the reverse directions of the Likert scales. On the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the higher scores indicated more burnout, and on the alienation scales, the lower the scores for each dimension, the greater the alienation. The correlations of these variables, though significant, are influenced in the real world by various other factors. Such intervening variables may be identified by more detailed studies of the relationship between alienation and burnout.

Although the dimensions of powerlessness and isolation had the strongest mean responses for social workers' reported feelings of alienation, self-estrangement and meaninglessness had stronger correlation coefficients with burnout. On the basis of that correlation, one may speculate that meaninglessness and self-estrangement, though not rated as great problems by the sample populations, may be the more volatile of the four dimensions of alienation retained in this study and the ones most likely to evoke feelings of burnout. Powerlessness and isolation may increase a sense of frustration and futility, but self-estrangement and lack of meaning in one's work may provoke a different form of psychic distress that more potentially evokes symptoms of burnout.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

The purpose of this study was to provide an empirical basis for linking the concepts of alienation and burnout. A central tenet of various conceptualizations of burnout is that persons are more likely to be burned out if their jobs require them to deal with the problems of others. This conceptualization of burnout differentiates it from stress arising from other types of work demands that may also take a physical and mental toll. Burnout, as defined by Maslach (1982), is linked to one's relationship with another and the bases of that relationship. Because social workers customarily deal with the problems and pains of others, they are good subjects for study.

Arches (1991) suggested that the conditions under which social workers work have changed and the increasing bureaucratization of their work has fostered workplace conditions similar to those described in the literature on alienation (Keefe, 1984). Seeman (1959) noted five distinct dimensions within the broader concept of alienation. Those dimensions were translated into statements about work and relationships with clients and collectively constitute a trial instrument developed for the purposes of this pilot study.

A survey of social workers practicing in the State of Wisconsin was undertaken to determine the extent to which they acknowledged feelings of both burnout and alienation. The findings suggest that the respondents, overall, did not feel markedly burned out. Although the mean responses were low to moderate, considerable variation occurred in the range of responses among individuals in the sample, and some individual respondents scored quite high.

On the measures of dimensions of alienation, the mean responses were likewise not strongly indicative of alienation. However, the mean responses suggest that although, collectively, respondents' sense of alienation was not great, they did report significantly greater feelings of isolation and powerlessness than they did of meaninglessness and self-estrangement. Some individuals reported consistently strong positive responses to some aspects of alienation, and other individuals had consistently negative responses.

Each of the four dimensions of alienation retained in this pilot study was very significantly correlated with the responses on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. This finding supports Karger's (1981) premise that burnout is causally related to alienation or that both may in fact be different expressions of the same phenomenon.

Although the mean responses for meaninglessness and self-estrangement were less strong than were those for isolation and powerlessness, the correlation between those two dimensions of alienation and the concept of burnout was greater. If social work practice no longer affirms an individual's desired self-concept or supplies the meaning desired from one's work, motivation for continuing practice may well be diminished. The data suggest that lack of power over the conditions of one's social work practice and a sense of isolation may be strongly linked to burnout and that burnout rises in conjunction with powerlessness. If a sense of powerlessness to deal with and resolve the problems of others exists, then professional practice is unlikely to provide the sense of meaning necessary to keep the practitioner cognitively, emotionally, and even physically healthy.

The respondents to this survey were, in some sense, survivors, in that they are still practicing their profession. Certainly, a considerable but unknown number of social workers in Wisconsin (and elsewhere) have chosen, for unknown reasons, to leave the profession for other kinds of work. One can only speculate as to whether part of the impetus for their leaving the profession was due to alienation and burnout. It is, however, reasonable to assume that if feelings of both alienation and burnout become too stressful, people will leave the profession. The extent to which alienation and burnout are factors in such decisions is the subject of another study.

This study supports the hypothesis that alienation and burnout are strongly related concepts. Among social workers, some dimensions of alienation appear to be more strongly linked to burnout than are others. This information provides social workers with a better understanding of their own needs and of sources of stress and strain that may result in burnout. It can provide administrators and supervisors with insight into ways of nurturing and preserving those human needs peculiar to professionals whose sense of self is linked to helping others.

REFERENCES

Arches, 1, (1985). Don't burn, organize: A structural analysis of burnout in the human services. Catalyst, 5(17-18), 15-20.

Arches, J. (1991). Social structure, burnout, and job satisfaction. Social Work, 36, 202-206.

Cherniss, C. (1980). Staff burnout: Job stress in the human services. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Jayaratne, S., & Chess, W. (1984). Job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover: A national study. Social Work, 29, 448453.

Josephson, E., & Josephson, M. (1962). Man alone: Alienation in modern society. New York: Dell.

Karger, H. (1981). Burnout as alienation. Social Service Review, 55, 270-283.

Keefe, T. (1984). Alienation and social work practice. Social Casework, 65, 145-153.

Lachman, V. D. (1983). Stress management: A manual for nurses. New York: Grune and Stratton.

Marcuse, H. (1970). Five lectures. Boston: Beacon Press.

Maslach, C. (1982). Burnout: The cost of caring. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Paine, W. S. (1982). Job stress and burnout: Research, theory and intervention perspectives. Beverly Hills CA: Sage Publications.

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Pines, A., Aronson, E. (1988). Career burnout: Causes and cures. New York: Free Press.

Pines, A., & Maslach, C. (1978). Characteristics of staff burnout in mental health settings. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 29, 233-237.

Ratliff, N. (1988). Stress and burnout in the helping professions, Social Casework, 60, 147-154.

Schaehtel, E. (1961, November). On alienated concepts of identity. American Journal of Psychoanalysis.

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Walsh, J. (1987). Burnout and values in the social service profession. Social Casework, 68, 279-283.

William E. Powell is Chairperson and Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, Wisconsin. The author thanks Edward Gumz for his collaboration in this research.

Copyright Family Service America Apr 1994
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