THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL BURNOUT AND PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY OF PSYCHOLOGISTS UNDER CONDITIONS OF UNCERTAINTY

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive theoretical and analytical analysis of the relationship between professional identity and emotional burnout among psychologists in the current context of social, professional, and existential uncertainty. The relevance of the study is determined by the profound transformational processes taking place in Ukrainian society as a result of full-scale war, prolonged social tension, growing collective anxiety, and a significant increase in the population's need for psychological assistance. In these conditions, professionals in the helping professions, particularly psychologists, find themselves in a situation of chronic professional overload, which significantly affects both their psycho-emotional state and the quality of their professional activity.

In this work, emotional burnout is considered as a multidimensional psychological phenomenon that is formed under the influence of prolonged professional stress and manifests itself through emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduction in professional achievements. Particular attention is paid to contemporary approaches to understanding burnout, which include the phenomena of concomitant traumatization, moral stress, and compassion fatigue syndrome, which are particularly characteristic of the work of psychologists involved in dealing with traumatic experiences, crisis events, and the consequences of war.

Professional identity within the scope of this study is defined as an integrative psychological construct that combines a system of professional values, self-perception as a specialist, awareness of professional roles, internal motivation, ethical responsibility, and a sense of the significance of one's own activities. The theoretical basis of the analysis is formed by classical concepts of identity (E. Erikson, J.E. Marcia), as well as modern approaches to professional development of the individual (M.L. Savickas), which consider identity as a dynamic process that is constantly transformed under the influence of life events and the professional environment.

The article summarizes the results of contemporary foreign and domestic studies that confirm the existence of a close and bilateral relationship between professional identity and emotional burnout. It is shown that a formed, coherent professional identity is an important psychological resource that provides resistance to stress, maintains motivation for professional activity, and promotes effective adaptation in conditions of uncertainty. At the same time, unstable, contradictory, or incomplete professional identity significantly increases the risk of emotional burnout, loss of meaning in professional activity, and professional maladjustment.

Special attention is paid to the fact that emotional burnout has not only a consequential but also a destructive effect on professional identity: prolonged emotional exhaustion gradually leads to a blurring of the professional self, a decline in self-esteem of professional competence, a loss of belonging to the profession, and a loss of the intrinsic value of one's work. Thus, a vicious circle is formed in which the weakness of professional identity exacerbates burnout, and burnout, in turn, deepens the identity crisis.

The article substantiates the need to move from purely symptom-oriented approaches to the prevention of emotional burnout to holistic psychoprophylactic models aimed at developing professional self-awareness, reflection, the value-semantic sphere, and the internal resources of the psychologist. The results of the study can be used in the professional training of future psychologists, in the system of supervisory and intervision support, as well as in the development of psychological support programs for specialists working in conditions of crisis, war, and social instability.

Thus, the analysis contributes to a deeper scientific understanding of the psychological mechanisms of professional resilience and creates a theoretical basis for the formation of effective strategies for maintaining the mental health of psychologists in the current conditions of uncertainty.