Laetitia, 42, was diagnosed with burnout three years ago. She tells BFMTV that her “concentration level became extremely difficult, every meeting was a moment of personal stress because I had to concentrate so hard to capture every piece of information. I really took note of everything so I wouldn’t forget because I felt like my memory was failing. “
One day, it was a banal scene from everyday life that pushed her to consult: “I was teleworking, I opened the refrigerator, there was an artichoke and I said to myself: ‘Hey, I’m going to make an artichoke.’ And I couldn’t say to myself: ‘it’s an artichoke.’ The word ‘artichoke’ no longer reached my brain.”
“Then I said to myself: ‘OK, it’s hot, it’s very hot, you’re totally confused. Even a word from everyday life you can’t take it in and get it out,’ she says, quickly deciding to make an appointment with the doctor.
“Very easy to detect”
“Burnout”, which has entered common language in recent years, affects at least 30,000 people in France, according to a report published in 2016 by the Health Surveillance Institute (currently the National Health Agency). Public Health, better known as Public Health France). This syndrome questions our relationship with work and its recognition is one of the great challenges of occupational medicine.
What are the warning signs? And above all, how do we get out of it when it worries us? Dr. Alain Meunier, psychiatrist-psychoanalyst and founder of the Burnout Center, based in Paris, specifies that the term burnout does not designate a pathology.
“It is a very defined disorder, very easy to detect, in the end doctors are not essential and you can even detect someone in your environment who is suffering from burnout,” he explains.
Anxiety, loss of concentration, feeling of “fight”
The symptoms are varied: general anxiety, moral anxiety, sadness sensation, neurocognitive troubles (manque de concentration, pertes de mémoire récurrentes), basis of productivity and surtout l’impression d’être “in lutte” constant to accomplir la moindre la Stain.
The doctor notes that exhaustion usually takes several months, which is quite a long time. “It is not easy to detect particular signs during this time,” warns Alain Meunier. One sign, however, is unmistakable: the fact of increasing hours focusing almost exclusively on one’s own work, which however seems increasingly difficult.
Du côté des causes, les spécialistes pointent surtout le fait que les travailleurs “manquent de liberté dans leur travail. Ils sont tous confrontés à un cadre et gênés dans leur propre évolution” et le fait qu'”on demande de plus en plus de compétences to the people”.
They also highlight the significant proportion of quite young people among the public they support. “It is clear that we are doing work, that we are pushing the machines but we are not teaching them how to really work. I think there is a lot to advance here, we have to take care of the machine (…) it is part of the studies,” according to Alain Meunier.
Treatments for symptoms, not causes.
Keep in mind that burnout is completely different from depression, which is important especially when looking for a cause in the work environment or when we come to the point of care: “If you put burnout under an antidepressant, it won’t help you.” help”. “I feel good,” summarizes the doctor.
As for treatment, to treat the problem in depth it is necessary to practice relaxing activities that rest the brain (yoga, meditation), “there is no treatment per se, at least medicinal,” the specialists specify.
To treat the symptoms, Alain Meunier recommends specific psychotherapy sessions (behavioral and cognitive therapies (CBT), Gestalt/formal psychology) but also a therapy called “EDMR” (neuroemotional integration through eye movements), based on eye movement and it is usually used for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Alain Meunier is also a particular advocate of rTMS (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation), which works with a magnetic field that reinforces and reactivates neurotransmitters damaged by exhaustion.
Question of recognition and support.
Faced with a term that has become widespread, to the point of sometimes being used abusively, Dr. Sylvie Bouron, director of the Burn-out Center, however explains that “false positives” are rare.
“I challenge you to find someone who pretends to be burned. I think it is extremely complicated to act,” says the specialist.
Although there are no international standards, Norwegian researchers have developed a detailed questionnaire with a score that could facilitate diagnosis and which is already used in thirty countries.
Regarding treatment, specialists explain that many doctors still do not recognize burnout as such and that Social Security, if it recognizes it as a “long-term illness” (ALD), does not consider it an occupational disease, that is, , attributable to the work environment.
While it is possible to classify burnout as an occupational disease, this qualification is subject to case-by-case examination. “First you have to go through the occupational doctor, then through the health insurance fund, then through the Regional Committee for the Recognition of Occupational Diseases (CRRMP).
“This whole process takes about six months. The real problem is that today to treat burnout it takes a month, but often administrative procedures do not help,” laments Alain Meunier.
Source: BFM TV
