Resisting burnout with justice-doing
Reynolds, V. (2011). Resisting burnout with justice-doing. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work. (4) 27-45.
In this writing I critique the individualism and neutrality of burnout, and offer an approach for resisting burnout with collective sustainability that is shouldered-up by justice-doing. This requires an understanding of collective ethics, and the spiritual pain that we hold as community workers and therapists when we are forced to work against our ethics. I describe the role of justice-doing and solidarity in relation to our sustainability, and practice which can foster our sustainability collectively including embracing Earth Democracy, co-creating collective ethics, contesting cynicism, attending to immeasurable outcomes, and giving-it-back practices. I connect staying fully alive in our work with therapeutic and possibly revolutionary love, and reflect on the powerful transformation our work offers us. I address the possibility of connecting with the social divine and transforming the contest of social injustice in which clients live and we work.