Studying the Impact of Professional Interaction on Social Workers’ Emotional Burnout

Abstract

The article deals with emotional burnout in social workers who work with people who witnessed the conflict, lost loved ones or with numerous refugees who moved to different parts of the country and are rebuilding their lives. The authors of the article used a free-form essay on the topic "The Most Problematic Situations in My Work with Migrants". They analyzed the obtained results using content analysis to identify the main manifestations of “burnout”, as well as possible preconditions for its occurrence. The research involved 245 social workers aged between 25 and 45 (work experience of 5 to 10 years), who assist those who have become migrants as a result of hostilities in eastern Ukraine. Most often, negative emotional states in social workers with emotional burnout cause difficulties in the adaptation of migrants from the war zone in eastern Ukraine. Content analysis has shown that most emotionally significant situations in the interaction between social workers and these clients arise because of psychological difficulties. Emotional states of social workers within the structure of emotional burnout are manifested through the identification-separation mechanism. In turn, social workers perceive negative emotional states as a manifestation of their psychological professional inability accompanied by disorders in self-identity and negative content of structural units of self-awareness. Social workers themselves experience several difficulties when communicating with clients and helping them to overcome problematic situations.