Exhausted men and women: contributions to a social, cultural and historical reading of professional burnout

Abstract

The article reflects on the historical, social and cultural dimensions of neurasthenia and burnout. It reminds us the etiological theories of the xix century, related to neurasthenia, as well the cultural critique to the modern concepts of burnout, associated to the effects of globalization and the new technologies of information/communication. The text calls our attention for the repetition of ideas that must be situated in their historical context, with interesting explanatory similarities and interpreted with a sociological and anthropological focus. More modern explanations converge in the concept of stress, a cultural code for the expression of a diffuse distress in contemporary societies associated with new organization settings and the work’s value.