Burnout, Fatigue, Exhaustion: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on a Modern Affliction

311 Pages·2017·2.11 MB·English

by  Sighard Neckel

Burnout, Fatigue, Exhaustion
Sighard Neckel (cid:129) Anna Katharina Schaffner (cid:129) Greta Wagner
Editors
Burnout, Fatigue,
Exhaustion
An Interdisciplinary Perspectives
fl
on a Modern Af iction
Editors
SighardNeckel AnnaKatharinaSchaffner
InstituteofSociology SchoolofEuropeanCultureandLanguages
UniversityofHamburg UniversityofKent
Hamburg,Germany Canterbury,UnitedKingdom
GretaWagner
InstituteofSociology
GoetheUniversityFrankfurt
Frankfurt,Germany
ISBN978-3-319-52886-1 ISBN978-3-319-52887-8(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-52887-8
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
ff
Sighard Neckel, Anna Katharina Scha ner
and Greta Wagner
Part I Cultural-Historical Perspectives
2 Pre-Modern Exhaustion: On Melancholia and Acedia 27
ff
Anna Katharina Scha ner
3 Neurasthenia and Managerial Disease in Germany and
America: Transnational Ties and National Characteristics
–
in the Field of Exhaustion 1880 1960 51
Patrick Kury
Part II Exhaustion Syndromes
fi
4 Exhaustion Syndromes: Concepts and De nitions 77
Johanna M. Doerr and Urs M. Nater
5 Burnout: A Short Socio-Cultural History 105
Wilmar B. Schaufeli
v
vi Contents
6 Burnout: From Work-Related Stress to a Cover-Up
Diagnosis 129
Linda V. Heinemann and Torsten Heinemann
Part III Exhaustion and Self-Realisation
7 What We Talk About When We Talk About Mental
Health: Towards an Anthropology of Adversity in
Individualistic Society 153
Alain Ehrenberg
8 Self-Realisation Through Work and Its Failure 173
Elin Thunman and Marcus Persson
9 Exhaustion and Euphoria: Self-Medication with
Amphetamines 195
Greta Wagner
Part IV Exhaustion Discourses
10 Rechargeable Man in a Hamster Wheel World:
Contours of a Trendsetting Illness 217
Ulrich Bröckling
11 Literary Exhaustion 237
Michael Greaney
Part V Exhaustion and the Social
12 Social Agony and Agonising Social Constructions 259
Iain Wilkinson
13 Exhaustion as a Sign of the Present 283
Sighard Neckel and Greta Wagner
Contents vii
14 Conclusion 305
ff
Sighard Neckel, Anna Katharina Scha ner
and Greta Wagner
Index 311
List of Tables
Table 4.1 Fatigue Syndromes 81
ix
1
Introduction
Sighard Neckel, Anna Katharina Schaffner
and Greta Wagner
–
Ourage,itseems,istheageofexhaustion.Theprevalenceofexhaustion
both as an individual experience and as a broader socio-cultural
–
phenomenon is manifest in the epidemic rise of burnout, depression,
and chronic fatigue. It is equally present in a growing disenchantment
with capitalism in its current neo-liberal form, in concerns about the
psycho-social repercussions of ever-faster information and communica-
tion technologies, in a general distrust in grand narratives, and in
anxieties aboutecological sustainability.
S. Neckel (*)
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
A.K. Schaffner
University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
e-mail: a.k.schaff[email protected]
G. Wagner
Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s) 2017 1
S. Neckel et al. (eds.), Burnout, Fatigue, Exhaustion,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52887-8_1
2 S.Neckeletal.
As the precise organic causes of chronic exhaustion are still being
fi
debated, exhaustion theories entail by de nition assumptions about the
relationshipbetweenmindandbody,andbetweentheenvironmentand
society, and are often ideologically charged. Moreover, exhaustion the-
fi
ories frequently function as discursive spaces in which speci c cultural
discontentsarearticulated.Theythereforepresenthighlyinstructivecase
ff
studiesforaninvestigationofthewaysinwhichindividualsu eringand
wider social dynamics are inter-related.
Toacertainextent,socialproblemsandwidercultural-historicaldevel-
fi
opments tend to be mirrored by the rise and fall of speci c medical
symptoms and so-called fashionable diseases. It is thus not an entirely
newphenomenonthatcurrentexhaustionsyndromesprovidetheoccasion
fl
forsocialself-re ectiononthepathologiesofmoderneconomicandsocial
life. It is nevertheless striking that what many consider a predominantly
mentalconditionhasbecomethesymbolofoursocialcondition.Whilein
thepastheartattack,circulatorycollapse,ortheproliferationofmalignant
cells served as symbols of social crises, currently exhaustion syndromes
seemtohavefewrivalswhenitcomestothepublicanamnesisofundesir-
able economic and social developments. A diagnostic commonality has
‘ ’
evolved in public discourse which starts with the exhausted self of the
self-responsible subject,1 proceeds to examine symptoms of exhaustion in
thestatusstruggle ofthemiddle classes,2 and finally arrives atthefinding
thatexpansionistconceptionsofgrowthhavebecomeexhausted,3andthus
ata critiqueofthe ideological scriptthat demandsthe continuousexpan-
sionofmoney,labour,andcommodities.
Theconceptofexhaustion,itseems,canserveequallywelltodescribe
such diverse phenomena as subjective predicaments and social ills.
1Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the
Contemporary Age, trans. David Homel et al. (Montreal: McGill-Queens’s University Press,
2010a).
2SeeSteffenMau,Inequality,MarketizationandtheMajorityClass:WhyDidtheEuropeanMiddle
ClassesAcceptNeo-Liberalism?(NewYork:PalgravePivot,2015).
3MeinhardMiegel,StefanieWahl,andMartinSchultewiththecollaborationofEliasButzmann,
Altering Attitudes: From a Culture of Consumerism to a Culture of Prosperity (Bonn: Denkwerk
Zukunft–StiftungkulturelleErneuerung,2011).