People with burn-on continue to function in everyday life – despite constant stress, exhaustion and physical complaints. What’s behind it and what helps those affected.
This text comes from the stern archive and first appeared on November 2nd, 2023.
Some time ago, the doctor Bert te Wildt and the psychologist Timo Schiele came up with the term “burn-on” as a catchy name for a phenomenon that many people are familiar with: you feel completely exhausted – and yet you continue to function. Those affected are always left short, so to speak before the burnout, but the total collapse does not occur. Bert te Wildt, a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy, and the psychologist Timo Schiele work in the Dießen Monastery Psychosomatic Clinic. There they actually treat people with burnout complaints. But in recent years there have been more and more patients sitting in front of him who, at first glance, you couldn’t tell how bad they were feeling, says Timo Schiele.
Like Anna Vogel (name changed by the editors), marketing manager and mother of three. The 42-year-old came to the clinic because she wanted to get her sleep problems and various chronic pain under control. She had been trying this for years with medication and a few hours with therapists. But without success. During the admission interview, she emphasized how important it was to her to be fit for her job again in four weeks at the latest. And that she plans to go back to full-time when she gets her health back under control.