Diagnosing burn-out: An Anthropological Study of a Social Concept in Sweden

Abstract: This is a thesis about the genesis, use, and decline of burn-out as a social concept in Sweden. The burn-out concept is treated as social because its classification of people interacts with the people classified. As a consequence of this, burn-out is studied in a dynamic holistic way, as an entirely social system within Swedish society. Hence it follows that the main question examined in the thesis is: What made the burn-out diagnosis acceptable, even normal, in Swedish society? The study involves several different sites with several different kinds of data. While the primary ethnographic sites, in terms of fieldwork, are two rehabilitation centers, the study also utilizes data from informal network meetings in the homes of burned-out persons and at public cafes, workshops, meetings, seminars for specialists, case reports, scientific and journalistic articles, television programs, and websites. The ethnographic data are analyzed through a niche theoretical framework. Chapter Four deals with the history of the burn-out concept, including its early introduction by Herbert J. Freudenberger, its development by Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson, and its introduction into Sweden. Chapter Five describes the process by which the label burn-out gradually became a plausible way to describe the Swede's existential distress in a rapidly changing society. The burn-out diagnosis was not only attributed to changes in the workplace, but also to changes in Swedish society as a whole under conditions of flexible capitalism. Chapter Six is the main ethnographic chapter, concerned with the rehabilitation of burn-out victims. The data presented here were collected primarily by participant observation in two different rehabilitation centers: the Forest Rest Center and the Effective Treatment Clinic. Chapter Seven is an investigation of the visibility of the burn-out diagnosis. This means that we follow the processes of how the diagnosis became visible to most Swedes. The conclusions in Chapter Eight provide an answer to the main question examined in the thesis by outlining a theoretical model, a middle range theory, showing the constitution of the burn-out diagnosis.