The first mention of “burn-out” was in the 1970s when psychologist Herbert Freudenberger borrowed the term from drug users to describe the emotional, physical and psychological exhaustion experienced by workers in the helping professions, including teachers (Freudenberger, 1974).
His work highlighted the impact of chronic stress, disillusionment and energy depletion among those who had strong values but faced difficult working conditions.
In addition to emotional exhaustion, Freudenberger identified detachment from work and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment as core burn-out components.
Freudenberger's exploration of burn-out was expanded by social psychologist Christina Maslach, whose Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) in the 1980s provided a tool to measure workplace burn-out (see Maslach & Jackson, 1981).
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