Burnout Syndrome in Pedagogical Professions and Its Prevention Through Poetry Therapy

Abstract

Burnout syndrome is assumed to be the primary reason for those in pedagogy to quit the profession, and is considered a well-researched and international problem, albeit with specific national variations. After two decades teaching at universities, collecting experiences in teachers training and education, we seek to subsume the symptoms of burnout especially in educational professions. The study describes the most important phenomena of burnout syndrome in pedagogical professions, and examines possible way to prevent it with help from therapeutical poetry methods. A series of literary therapeutic sessions seeks to develop deeper self-acknowledgement, to strengthen resilience and the handling of distress and to develop emotional regulation mechanisms. Based on the point of view of self care, Jung’s theory of archetypes, and the subsuming experience of narrative psychology and positive psychology, the study researches complex methods of burnout prevention in literary therapy. The interdisciplinary theoretical part is followed by a subsumption of the first practical experiences. The text is a shorted and modified version of a final thesis handed in for Poetry Therapy Studies at the Catholic Péter Pázmány University.