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Burnout is not your fault: Discovering the underlying causes of burnout using Systems Psychodynamics  

22 April 2025

Leadership development Organisational and system change
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By David Sibley

Introduction

49% of all work-related ill health in 2022/23 was due to work-related stress, depression, or anxiety1. Burnout often feels like a personal failing. People may respond by working harder, blaming themselves, or withdrawing from others. However, burnout should be seen as a symptom of wider organisational issues.  

As an organisational consultant I use an approach called Systems Psychodynamics. It’s based on the work of social scientists and psychoanalytic thinkers 2. It pays attention to the unconscious hidden aspects of human experience that often influences our behaviour behind the scenes. It is a way of thinking, enquiring and sense making into our experiences of work. It integrates psychoanalytic theory about individuals, and the psychoanalytic study of group behaviour with systems theory. It reveals how stress moves through organisational systems and can get located into certain areas.  

At Tavistock Consulting we work across whole organisations to increase staff wellbeing and performance as well as working with leaders individually in role consultancy.  

Burnout due to the nature of the task 

The nature of work we do impacts us consciously and unconsciously; it also affects how we organise our work. A classical study of nursing in the 1960’s by the social scientist Isobel Menzies Lyth explored staff burnout in a London hospital. At the time one third of student nurses did not complete their training, other staff left at higher rates than similar professions and the hospital had high short-term sickness. Menzies found that nurses were faced with considerable stress because their task stirred up many difficult, painful, and unwanted feelings linked to the physical and intimate work with patients and their families.  

Lucy works on a secure forensic ward, caring for patients with complex mental health needs and histories of violence. At first, she was committed and compassionate, but over time the constant exposure to aggression, unpredictability, and high alertness began to wear her down. She feels emotionally drained, detached from her patients, and guilty for no longer providing the care she once could. The work leaves her numb, irritable, and questioning whether she can continue. Despite her efforts, the emotional cost of maintaining safety and managing trauma day after day has led to burnout.

Menzies also observed that the nurses developed what she called ‘social defences against anxiety’ 3. They split up their tasks so several nurses would care for the same patient. Patients were depersonalised, a patient became a body part. Menzies gives the example of a patient being called ‘the liver in bed 10’. Nurses found themselves denying feelings and developing certain fixed rituals. Low level tasks were often delegated to superiors in a way that made it unclear where responsibility really lay. Social defences are common across all workplaces. These shared ways of coping that had developed over time to defend against anxiety had ended up causing much more anxiety and stopped individuals growing and developing more mature ways to cope.  

To cope, Lucy like many of her colleagues, unconsciously adopts sticking rigidly to routines, avoiding emotional engagement, and distancing herself from patients. These defences, supported by the ward culture, help manage anxiety but also contribute to her burnout. The cost of surviving the emotional impact of the work is a loss of meaning and connection in her role.

Questions to reflect on 

Burnout and the hidden roles we inhabit 

Imagine the workplace as a stage where you are performing social roles 4. As a member of a team, you will have formal and informal roles. You will be aware of some roles you are performing but other roles you may have been unconsciously given or unconsciously taking up on behalf of your team. This is a useful perspective when trying to identify causes of burnout. 

Arte works in a small team at an advertising agency. She’s known as the one to go to when there’s a problem. Colleagues often joke that she’s the “mother” of the team. A label she initially enjoyed, especially as she prided herself on being a natural problem-solver, a role she had also played in her family growing up.  But lately, things have shifted. Arte finds that she’s always the one expected to manage crises — especially difficult clients or internal tensions. While her official role hasn’t changed, she has unconsciously been taking on the burden of keeping everything (and everyone) together.  She starts feeling exhausted, resentful, and overlooked. Despite doing so much, her work isn’t recognised in the same way as others’. The constant pressure to “hold” the team is leaving her drained and disengaged. She begins to withdraw, doubts her abilities, and dreads coming to work — classic signs of burnout. In unconsciously positioning Arte as the team’s emotional anchor, the group protects itself from facing its own conflict and dependency.

The pioneering psychoanalyst Bion introduced a key theoretical term ‘valency’, which he gave to describe how a person can be selected by a group to perform a role 5. Stokoe, an organisational consultant, describes this like a hook, a link between a person’s unconscious and the group dynamic 6. Based on our early history, our own needs and desires we can have a predisposition to take up certain roles. Role then can be seen as psychologically and socially constructed 7. Roles also exist in a wider context and connect to societal values and resources. So, we can think of role as where the person, system and context overlap 8.  

Questions to reflect on: 

Burnout as a lack of containment 

Beyond the roles we take up, burnout can also arise when there is a failure in emotional containment — either through leadership, systems, or the nature of the work itself. An important idea when exploring the symptom of burnout is the ‘container and the contained’, which British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion 9wrote about. One person allows themselves to be open to knowing about the overwhelming experiences and feelings of someone else, very often someone who depends on them in some way. By being ready to know about these feelings and communicate a real interest in them as something to be taken seriously, there is the chance for the feelings to be transformed into meaningful experience, and ‘contained’. Here is an everyday example occurring in a leadership and followership relationship.  

Laura had just chaired a morning meeting. Throughout the meeting Rupert one of her HR advisers had seemed very tetchy and irritable. All his contributions came with an emotional angry charge and Laura could feel his anger pouring into her. Although provoked, Laura was instead curious about what might be behind Rupert’s behaviour. After the meeting Laura checked in with Rupert, he explained he ‘was done with the organisation’ he could not bear it anymore, as one of the sector heads had not been following the formal grievance process properly. Laura was able to listen to him carefully, take in his frustration. She asked questions to clarify his concerns, which helped him identify his and the organisation’s needs, this shifted his perspective, and he was able to now tolerate the situation and develop a plan forward. 

The roles of leadership and management is to have a containing function. We also can think of systems and processes as also functioning to contain. The task of some work itself can become traumatising without adequate containment. Emergency services must deal daily with traumatic situations. Approaches like Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) can be applied to reduce risk. There also is a risk of vicarious trauma with certain roles, in which people hear the stories of those who have experienced trauma. From one perspective burnout can be seen as a failure of adequate containment in an organisational system.  

However, moral distress/injury is different. Unlike burnout, which often emerges from prolonged emotional strain, moral injury arises when systemic conditions prevent people from acting according to their values. This can arise when a given standard of care, violates a person’s moral code 10. This can occur in contexts without adequate support or resources. A person may be distressed as a response to working in an environment that constrains them in taking an appropriate ethical approach to their work.  

Questions to reflect on  

Conclusion 

A systems psychodynamic lens invites us to see burnout not as a personal flaw, but as a signal — one that reveals strain in the emotional and structural fabric of organisations. By exploring unconscious roles, systemic defences, and the presence or absence of containment, we gain insight into how burnout arises — and how it might be transformed. 

At Tavistock Consulting, we help organisations and leaders approach burnout with depth, curiosity, and compassion. Whether through whole-system consultancy or one-to-one coaching, we support people to explore what’s really going on beneath the surface — and how meaningful change can begin. 

Start a Conversation 

Burnout isn’t just an individual issue — it’s a system speaking. 

If these questions resonate, or you’re seeing signs of strain in your team, we’d love to explore it with you. Let’s start a conversation about what’s going on beneath the surface — and what might be possible if we bring it into the open. 

  References

  1. Health and safety executive. Work-related stress, depression or anxiety statistics in Great Britain, 2023. Health and safety executive; 2023 ↩︎
  2. Fraher A. Systems Psychodynamics: The Formative Years of an Interdisciplinary Field at the Tavistock Institute. History of psychology. 2004;7:65-84 ↩︎
  3. Menzies IEP. A case study in the functioning of social systems as a defence against anxiety. A report on a study of the nursing service of a general hospital. Human Relations. 1960;13 ↩︎
  4. Goffman E. The presentation of self in everyday life: Doubleday, Doran and Company Ltd; 1959.  ↩︎
  5. Bion WR. Experiences in groups and other papers. London: Tavistock Publications; 1961.  ↩︎
  6. Stokoe P. Where have all the adults gone? In: David M, editor. The Unconscious in Social and Political Life. Bicester: Phoenix Publishing House; 2019. p. 1-25 ↩︎
  7. Reed B, Bazalgette J. Organisational Role Analysis at The Grubb Institute of Behavioural Studies: Origins and development. In: Newton J, Long S, Sievers B, editors. Coaching in Depth: The Organizational Role Analysis Approach. London: Karnac; 2006. p. 43-62. ↩︎
  8. Long S. Transforming Experience in Organisations. London: Routledge; 2016. ↩︎
  9. Bion WR. Elements of Psycho-Analysis. London: Karnac Books; 1963 ↩︎
  10. Williamson V, Murphy D, Phelps A, Forbes D, Greenberg N. Moral injury: the effect on mental health and implications for treatment. The Lancet Psychiatry. 2021;8(6):453-5 ↩︎