Self-Reported Symptoms of Burnout in Novice Professional Counselors: A Content Analysis

This study explored the self-reported symptoms of burnout in a sample of 246 novice professional counselors. The authors inductively analyzed 1,205 discrete units using content analysis, yielding 12 categories and related subcategories. Many emergent categories aligned with existing conceptualizations of burnout, while other categories offered new insights into how burnout manifested for novice professional counselors. Informed by these findings, the authors implore counseling scholars to consider, in their conceptualization of counselor burnout, a wide range of burnout symptoms, including those that were frequently endorsed symptoms (e.g., negative emotional experience, fatigue and tiredness, unfulfilled in counseling work) as well as less commonly endorsed symptoms (e.g., negative coping strategies, questions of one’s career choice, psychological distress). Implications for novice professional counselors and supervisors are offered, including a discussion about counselors’ experiences of burnout to ensure they are providing ethical services to their clients.

School Counselor Burnout, Job Stress, and Job Satisfaction by Student Caseload

In this cross-sectional quantitative study, we employed survey research to examine the differences in school counselors’ ( N = 327) burnout, job stress, and job satisfaction based on their student caseload size. The results indicated that higher caseloads were associated with higher degrees of burnout and job stress, along with lower job satisfaction. The results produced small to medium effect sizes. We discussed how such factors relate to the effectiveness of providing student services and school leaders’ support for school counselors.