Burnout and Psychological Wellbeing Among Psychotherapists: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objectives: The general aim of this systematic review is to synthesize, analyze, and critically review existing studies concerning the relationship between sociodemographic, intrapersonal, and work-related factors and burnout, as well as psychological wellbeing among psychotherapists.

Methodology: We performed a structured literature search utilizing the PRISMA framework in the following databases: Web of Science, Scopus, MedLine, PsyARTICLES, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. The most relevant inclusion criteria were quantitative and peer-reviewed articles published in English.

Results: After the selection process, we accepted 52 articles for further systematic review. Thirty-eight studies examined burnout among psychotherapists, while the other 14 studies focused on psychological wellbeing in this sample.

Conclusions: Burnout and wellbeing among psychotherapists are related to numerous sociodemographic (e.g., age, gender), intrapersonal (e.g., coping, personality), and work-related characteristics, including work settings and professional support in this profession (e.g., supervision or personal therapy). However, the high heterogeneity observed between studies in terms of burnout and wellbeing operationalization and measurement warrants more consistent and advanced methodological models of these theoretical constructs in the future in this specific sample.

Keywords: burnout; distress; psychotherapy; systematic review; wellbeing.