Depression vs Burnout

There are a few diagnoses burnout is really hard to differentiate from. Depression is one of them. Before you read on, remember that diagnostic categories are rarely neat pigeonhole you can use to classify people. If you have clicked this content button, it probably was because you feel something is wrong with you and you would like to know exactly what that is. That‘s OK, but don‘t be surprised if no clear-cut answer emerges. So far the bad news.The good news is that any competent professional you may consult won‘t try to pigeonhole you either. The focus ought to be on what your problem in essence is.

Nevertheless, here is an attempt to differentiate things.The traditional wisdom is that burnout is something context related, most commonly work related, whereas depression is „context free“, pervasive, intruding all aspects of your life.

Before we proceed, let‘s make a distinction between depression as a clinical entity on the one side, something you may get treated for, even hospitalized for— and depression as a symptom, on the other. Even that distinction is not a sharp one. People we call „depressed“ or „depressive” (but not „depressives“) can‘t seem to lift their mood anymore; they got the blues; their self-esteem is usually shaken; typically, they feel ashamed of themselves. This symptom cluster is practically always present in people who carry a clinical diagnosis of „(major) depression“ — the so-called „depressives“. But those people have additional symptoms, such as loss of interest in life, weight changes, guilt feelings, sleep problems, and so on; they have them to a much more extreme degree, and on a more or less permanent basis (at least for two weeks without interruption).

So, for simplicity‘s sake, let‘s speak of „depressive symptoms“ vs. „depression“.

Depressive symptoms are part of the burnout syndrome, actually a central part of it, at least after the first stages. Burnout is characterized by additional symptoms. There is more to burnout than merely feeling depressed. There are additional „core” symptoms of burnout, such as a dissatisfaction with one‘s accomplishments, a disgust for the job one is doing, and a somewhat or extremely strained relationship with one‘s social environment (maybe only parts of it, e.g. the recipients of one‘s services).

At any rate, advanced stages of burnout and severe cases of depression are hardly distinguishable. That may be so because what used to be domain specific in the beginning of a burnout process — when it was still possible to really forget one‘s worries, when a certain unwinding was still possible — tends to spill over into other compartments of life, until the whole world turns grey, or even black. That‘s when suicide becomes a fantasy which sometimes is acted out.

A second answer to the question, what‘s the difference between burnout and depression, is: People in a burnout process usually FIGHT. At least the active type. From the outside, they may seem rebels without a cause, but, before they finally give up, they have their own war going. That doesn‘t seem to be true for depressives, who usually mourn losses, like a person who has died, a job one has lost, a love who has leaved them. A tentative rule of thumb is: A lottery win of $ 10 million would normally help a person burning out, but not a depressive person in the clinical sense.

Now, how do you rate yourself?