Burnout has become a byword for workplace exhaustion, but does it have a deeper history? Hannah Proctor joins us to explain how the notion emerged in the USA’s 1960s countercultural free clinics movement, at first relating to the emotional defeat of idealistic activists but came to be seen as simply the result of working too hard. It’s a story that tracks the trajectory of capitalism itself – as Hannah shows referencing thinkers from Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello to filmmaker Adam Curtis.

Rosie and Alexis ask Hannah: are there gendered, classed and racialised aspects to how burnout gets discussed? How do structural conditions prevent us from caring for caregivers? And how do the statements of those in power undermine or validate the causes we care about, and thus compound our feelings of defeat and exhaustion?

Hannah explains what psychiatrist Frantz Fanon's work teaches us about the challenges and contradictions of striving to make people “well” in a sick society. Plus, she tells us why the Black Panther phrase “survival pending revolution” is a crucial reminder that while small-scale acts of care remain essential, only wholesale reform can ensure a better, less burnout, world for all.

Guest: Hannah Proctor
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker

Find more about Uncommon Sense

Episode Resources

Recommended by Hannah

• “Hyper” – A. Ismaïl

From The Sociological Review

• The Stigma Conversations: Apocalypse and Change – I. Tyler, A. Knox
• Uncommon Sense: Care – B. Skeggs, R. Hancock, A. H. Truong
• Healing, knowing, enduring: Care and politics in damaged worlds – M. Tironi, I. Rodríguez-Giralt

By Hannah Proctor

• Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat
• “Sadistic, grinning rifle-women” in Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750–2020
• university profile and website

Further reading

• “Burn-out: The High Cost of High Achievement” – H. J. Freudenberger, G. Richelson
• “Staff Burn‐Out” – H. J. Freudenberger
• “How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation” – A. H. Petersen
• “Edifice Complex” – B. Ansfield
• “The making of burnout” – M. J. Hoffarth
• “Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties” – M. Davis, J. Wiener
• “The New Spirit of Capitalism” – L. Boltanski, E. Chiapello
• “The Care Manifesto” – The Care Collective
• “Revolutionary Suicide” – H. P. Newton
• “The Case of Blackness” – F. Moten
• “The Wretched of the Earth” – F. Fanon
• “Disalienation” – C. Robcis

Read about Isabelle Le Pain’s work and watch Adam Curtis's films.

** We want to hear from you! Please take two minutes to complete our listener survey here. It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **

Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense

Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected] 

Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter