All You Need To Know About Burnout

We caught up with Sam Hope - Learnest facilitator & experienced LGBTQ+ therapist and activist.
Sam will be leading the Learnest workshop looking at Burnout on 3rd February.

Hi Sam! Before we start, can you tell us what the term Burnout means for anyone reading this who isn’t familiar with the term?
Sure! Burnout is when we lose our resilience to or become overwhelmed by things that we previously were managing. It is often linked to vicarious trauma. We can experience exhaustion, irritability, compassion fatigue, and the feeling of having “hit an invisible wall”. At its worst, burnout can be very debilitating.

Thanks, can you now tell us a bit about yourself and your experience with Burnout?
I’m a person-centred, BACP accredited therapist with a specialism in trauma and oppression, I’m also bi, trans, neurodivergent and disabled and involved in activism and community work.

I’ve experienced burnout myself in relation to activism, but I’ve also been involved in examining the ways you can protect activists, advocates, support workers and other helpers from burnout. I found it telling that I did not experience burnout in my work, despite its demands, and this gave me insight into how we can protect people from burnout.

Can you tell us why do you think the workshop you are hosting on the 3rd Feb with Learnest is relevant for LGBTQ+ people in 2021?
We’re living in overwhelming circumstances – austerity and then a pandemic have slowly eroded the services that used to support our community, while there has also been an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and hate crime. This means our community is forced to step up more and more to protect and support each other and sometimes we don’t have the right support in place ourselves to do this – that’s when we can be at risk of burnout. The workshop helps us work out how to create supportive structures for ourselves so we can more safely support others.

The Burnout Workshop will explore strategies for coping with and healing from burnout and building resilience. The workshop is free and open to all LGBTQ+ people. You can find out more and book your place following the link below.