Division of labor or mental illness?

The pathological entity to which the term "burnout" refers is not clear, although the phenomenon exists. This article aims to clarify the professional and social origins of burnout by confronting the philosophers who have analyzed the concept of work and the modern society to scientific literature.

The master thesis of Manguelinckx M. served as a starting point for the review of the scientific literature because it tends to understand the concept of burnout based on recent articles from Google Scholar, Discovery-libellule, Pubmed and Mediquality. The philsophers mobilized are: Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt and Bernard Stiegler.

There is heterogeneity in the definition of burnout, its causes and its symptoms. The diagnosis is established in several ways but most of the time, the exhaustion component suffices for diagnosis. Karl Marx describes work as alienating when the person executes repetitively an elementary task imposed on him. Hannah Arendt shows that at work, modern human performs these tasks in a stereotypical way and rarely thinks about their ethical consequences. Modern society transforms humans into consumers and provokes their instrumentalization. Bernard Stiegler shows that at work, the digital dispossesses the human from his know-how. The spread of digitalisation in all fields of life is hampering human autonomy and singularity, the dialogue between generations, friendship and family relationships.

The professional and social changes caused by modernity can explain the causes, risk factors and symptoms of burnout. They do not respect the authentically human fulfillment, and seem to "mistreat" humans. It is mandatory to study the links between these mutations and their psychological impact on human. For this, psychiatry must open up to other disciplines. A dialogue between psychiatrists and social and political actors is required.