Clinical Trainees\u27 Experience of Burnout and its Relationship to Supervision

Burnout is a phenomenon that has recently gotten a lot of attention in research and media, but there is still a need to understand burnout among clinical trainees. Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion, a sense of cynicism, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. This qualitative study attempted to understand clinical trainees’ experience of burnout, the factors they believed were contributing factors to their burnout, and how supervision impacted this experience. The participants included six trainees who were enrolled in a clinical or counseling doctorate program, have experienced or are currently experiencing burnout, and had at least six months of practica experience. The results of this study were fairly consistent with the literature, though there were characteristics of both how the burnout was experienced and the factors that contributed to burnout that were unique to this study. I also provide ways academic and training programs can ameliorate burnout among trainees, directions for future research, and the limits of this study