BURNOUT AND ENGAGEMENT: A FORTIGENIC PERSPECTIVE

Work leads to illness as well as health. Traditionally there is an inclination in work psychology to act on the assumption of deficits, working from a pathogenic paradigm. Accordingly, many studies were undertaken regarding the measurement, prevention and management of burnout. However, South African studies on burnout were less sophisticated, often using less than optimal research designs, measuring instruments and statistical analyses. Also, few studies were conducted regarding the factorial validity (employing confirmatory factor analysis), construct equivalence and item bias of measuring instruments of burnout. Furthermore, few studies in work psychology have been conducted from a fortigenic paradigm, including work engagements and psychological strengths. It is shown that research should be conducted to validate measuring instruments of engagement and psychological strengths in multicultural and cross-cultural contexts. Research is also needed regarding the effectiveness of interventions to stimulate psychological strengths and engagement and to manage burnout in diverse work settings. Work often generates ambivalent feelings. On the one hand work requires effort and is associated with lack of freedom and negative feelings. On the other hand work gives energy, enables development and generates positive feelings. Because of this ambivalence the. philosopher Hans Achterhuis (1984) referred to work as a strange medicine ("een eigenaardig medicijn"); it leads to illness as well as health. One perspective is that work could cause illness. Research in the Netherlands showed that between 4% and 10% of the working population reported serious burnout complaints (Bakker, Schaufeli & Van Dierendonck, 2000). Therefore, the conclusion that work may result in illness seems to be legitimate. However, there is also another side of the coin. Work, and more specifically goal-directed, structUred activity seems to be essential for psychological health. E"l(en Freud referred to "lieben und arbeiten" as the two important principles on which healthy psychological development rests. Also, the Marxist 'angehauchte' psychology from the 1970's held that personality develops through work. In helping, work is used to promote psychological well-being, for example occupational therapy for psychiatric patients. In addition, studies regarding the effects of unemployment showe<_l that a lack of work has detrimental effects, such as depression, alcoholism, psychological complaints and even suicide. Therefore, it can be concluded that work could either contribute to illness or could have a therapeutic effect. Traditionally the health arid social sciences have been characterised by a pathogenic paradigm, i.e. an orientation towards the abnormal, with the fundamental question being: "Why do people fall ill? " (Strlimpfer, 2000). Knowledge gain by answering this question is then used to find ways of treating and preventing diseases. Diener, Suh, Lucas en Smith (1999) showed that 17 times more scientific articles were published on negative feelings compared with positive feelings. Myers '(2000) found a more favourable ratio of 14:1. He mentions that since 1887, 8000 articles were published in Psychological Abstracts about anger, almost 57000 about anxiety and almost 70000 about depression. In comparison, 851 of • Inaugural lecture presented at the PU for CHE, Potchefstroom on 15 November 2002 the published articles were about joy, 2958 about happiness and 5701 about satisfaction. The focus of psychology was on detecting deficits, which Schaufeli and Bakker (2001) labelled "psychologie als een wetenschap van het gebrek" often without acknowledging strengths and resources. Since 1996 only 6% of the articles published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology focused on positive aspects of health and well-being. The other 96% were related to burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder, stress, conflict and psychosomatic complaints. Seligman (1992, p. 96) expressed his concern as follows: "My profession spends most of its time (and almost all of its money) trying to make the troubled less troubled. Helping troubled people is a worthy goal, but somehow psychology almost never gets around to the complementary goal of making the lives of well people even better". In contrast to the pathological interest in "what can go wrong", there has been attempts to discover "what can go right" (Striimpfer, 2000). It is a radically different set of assumptions and attributions about health and potential. During 2000, a whole edition of the American Psychologist focused on what was called "positive psychology" (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000, p. 5) wrote: "Tlie field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences; well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future) and flow and happiness (in the present)". Up to then, various internationally authors have proposed concepts referring to positive psychology. Examples of these concepts are striving for superiority (Adler, 1927), individuation (Jung, 1971), the mature personality (Allport, 1937), fully functioning personality (Rogers, 1951), internal-external locus of control (Rotter, 1966), will to meaning (Frankl, 1967), self-actualisation (Maslow, 1972), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1979), self-control (Rosenbaum, 1988) and intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The humanistic psychology which manifested as a "third force" in psychology (next to the psychoanalysis and behaviourism) in the 1950s could be regarded as a precursor of the positive psychology. Antonovsky (1979) introduced the construct of salutogenesis (Latin sal us = health, Greek genesis = origin) proposing that the origins of health rather than disease should be studied. Striimpfer (1995) argued that the construct of salutogenesis should be broadened from a focus on health only, to fortigenesis (Latin fortis = strong) referring to strength. Wissing and Van Eeden (1997) suggested a new sub-discipline ofpsychofortology and suggested that not only the origins of psychological well-being should be studied, but also the nature, manifestations and ways to enhance psychological well-being. According to Schaufeli and Bakker (2001), the concept of eustress ("healthy" stress) which is contrasted with distress ("unhealthy" stress) was up to now poorly researched. The concept was introduced almost 50 years ·ago, but up to now it was only referred to 13 times in Psychological Abstracts. Also in the management of people in the workplace there is traditionally an inclination to act on the assumption of deficits what McGregor (1960) called a "Theory X" view of employees (Striimpfer, 2000). The traditional assumption is that human beings dislike work and responsibility; because they are lazy and irresponsible, they need to be coerced, threatened with punishment and closely directed before they will work towards organisational objectives. According to Striimpfer (2000), Theory X beliefs are still with us. This can especially be seen when stress levels increase or when the economy starts pinching. Managers are then very likely to grab authority, play their cards close to their chests and trust levels hit rock bottom. This kind of a world view has its origin in Western culture that is "obsessed with, and fascinated by, psychopathology, victimisation, abnormality, and moral