Politics and the English Language

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language 

 

Cover of the Penguin edition

"Politics and the English Language" (1946) is an essay by George Orwell that criticised the "ugly and inaccurate" written English of his time and examines the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language.

The essay focuses on political language, which, according to Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind". Orwell believed that the language used was necessarily vague or meaningless because it was intended to hide the truth rather than express it. This unclear prose was a "contagion" which had spread to those who did not intend to hide the truth, and it concealed a writer's thoughts from himself and others. Orwell encourages concreteness and clarity instead of vagueness, and individuality over political conformity.

Summary

Orwell relates what he believes to be a close association between bad prose and oppressive ideology:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

One of Orwell's points is:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

The insincerity of the writer perpetuates the decline of the language as people (particularly politicians, Orwell later notes) attempt to disguise their intentions behind euphemisms and convoluted phrasing. Orwell says that this decline is self-perpetuating. He argues that it is easier to think with poor English because the language is in decline; and, as the language declines, "foolish" thoughts become even easier, reinforcing the original cause:

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

Orwell discusses "pretentious diction" and "meaningless words". "Pretentious diction" is used to make biases look impartial and scientific, while "meaningless words" are used to stop the reader from seeing the point of the statement. According to Orwell: "In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning."

Five passages

Orwell chooses five passages of text which "illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer." The samples are: by Harold Laski ("five negatives in 53 words"), Lancelot Hogben (mixed metaphors), an essay by Paul Goodman on psychology in the July 1945 issue of Politics ("simply meaningless"), a communist pamphlet ("an accumulation of stale phrases") and a reader's letter in Tribune (in which "words and meaning have parted company"). From these, Orwell identifies a "catalogue of swindles and perversions" which he classifies as "dying metaphors", "operators or verbal false limbs", "pretentious diction" and "meaningless words". (See cliches, prolixity, peacock terms and weasel words.)

 

Orwell notes that writers of modern prose tend not to write in concrete terms but use a "pretentious latinized style" (compare Anglish). He claims writers find it is easier to gum together long strings of words than to pick words specifically for their meaning—particularly in political writing, where Orwell notes that "[o]rthodoxy ... seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style". Political speech and writing are generally in defence of the indefensible and so lead to a euphemistic inflated style.

Orwell criticises bad writing habits which spread by imitation. He argues that writers must think more clearly because thinking clearly "is a necessary first step toward political regeneration". He later emphasises that he was not "considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought".

"Translation" of Ecclesiastes

As a further example, Orwell "translates" Ecclesiastes 9:11:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

– into "modern English of the worst sort":

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

Orwell points out that this "translation" contains many more syllables but gives no concrete illustrations, as the original did, nor does it contain any vivid, arresting images or phrases.

The headmaster's wife at St Cyprian's School, Mrs. Cicely Vaughan Wilkes (nicknamed "Flip"), taught English to Orwell and used the same method to illustrate good writing to her pupils. She would use simple passages from the King James Bible and then "translate" them into poor English to show the clarity and brilliance of the original. Walter John Christie, who followed Orwell to Eton College, wrote that she preached the virtues of "simplicity, honesty, and avoidance of verbiage", and pointed out that the qualities Flip most prized were later to be seen in Orwell's writing.

Remedy of Six Rules

Orwell said it was easy for his contemporaries to slip into bad writing of the sort he had described and that the temptation to use meaningless or hackneyed phrases was like a "packet of aspirins always at one's elbow". In particular, such phrases are always ready to form the writer's thoughts for him, to save him the bother of thinking—or writing—clearly. However, he concluded that the progressive decline of the English language was reversible and suggested six rules which, he claimed, would prevent many of these faults, although "one could keep all of them and still write bad English".

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. (Examples that Orwell gave included "ring the changes", "Achilles' heel", "swan song", and "hotbed". He described such phrases as "dying metaphors" and argued that they were used without knowing what was truly being said. Furthermore, he said that using metaphors of this kind made the original meaning of the phrases meaningless, because those who used them did not know their original meaning. He wrote that "some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact".)
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Publication

"Politics and the English Language" was first noted in Orwell's payment book of 11 December 1945. The essay was originally published in the April 1946 issue of the journal Horizon (volume 13, issue 76, pages 252–265); it was Orwell's last major article for the journal. The essay was originally intended for George Weidenfeld's Contact magazine but it was turned down.

From the time of his wife's death in March 1945 Orwell had maintained a high work rate, producing some 130 literary contributions, many of them lengthy. Animal Farm had been published in August 1945 and Orwell was experiencing a time of critical and commercial literary success. He was seriously ill in February and was desperate to get away from London to the island of Jura, Scotland, where he wanted to start work on Nineteen Eighty-Four.

"Politics and the English Language" was published nearly simultaneously with another of Orwell's essays, "The Prevention of Literature". Both reflect Orwell's concern with truth and how truth depends upon the use of language. Orwell noted the deliberate use of misleading language to hide unpleasant political and military facts and also identified a laxity of language among those he identified as pro-Soviet. In "The Prevention of Literature" he also speculated on the type of literature under a future totalitarian society which he predicted would be formulaic and low grade sensationalism. Around the same time Orwell wrote an unsigned editorial for Polemic in response to an attack from Modern Quarterly. In this he highlights the double-talk and appalling prose of J. D. Bernal in the same magazine, and cites Edmund Wilson's damnation of the prose of Joseph E. Davies in Mission to Moscow.

Critical reception

In his biography of Orwell, Michael Shelden called the article "his most important essay on style", while Bernard Crick made no reference to the work at all in his original biography, reserving his praise for Orwell's essays in Polemic, which cover a similar political theme. John Rodden asserts, given that much of Orwell's work was polemical, that he sometimes violated these rules and Orwell himself concedes that if you look back through his essay, "for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against". Rodden also says that Terry Eagleton had praised the essay's demystification of political language but had later become disenchanted with Orwell.

Linguist Geoffrey Pullum—despite being an admirer of Orwell's writing—criticised the essay for "its insane and unfollowable insistence that good writing must avoid all phrases and word uses that are familiar". Orwell's admonition to avoid using the passive voice has also been criticised. Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage refers to three statistical studies of passive versus active sentences in various periodicals, stating: "the highest incidence of passive constructions was 13 percent. Orwell runs to a little over 20 percent in 'Politics and the English Language'. Clearly he found the construction useful in spite of his advice to avoid it as much as possible".

Introductory writing courses frequently cite this essay. A 1999 study found that it was reprinted 118 times in 325 editions of 58 readers published between 1946 and 1996 that were intended for use in college-level composition courses.

In 1981, Carl Freedman's article "Writing Ideology, and Politics: Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' and English Composition" set in motion a "wide variety of critiques, reconsiderations, and outright attacks against the plain style" that Orwell argues for. The main issue found was Orwell's "simplistic faith about thought and language existing in a dialectical relation with one another; others quickly cut to the chase by insisting that politics, rightly considered, meant the insertion of an undercutting whose before every value word the hegemony holds dear". These critics also began to question Orwell's argument for the absoluteness of the English language, and asked whose values and truths were being represented through the language.

Orwell's writings on the English language have had a large impact on classrooms, journalism and other writing. George Trail, in "Teaching Argument and the Rhetoric of Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language'", says that "A large part of Orwell's rhetorical approach consists of attempting at every opportunity to acquire reader participation, to involve the reader as an active and engaged consumer of the essay. Popular journalism is full of what may be the inheritance of Orwell's reader involvement devices". Haltom and Ostrom's work, Teaching George Orwell in Karl Rove's World: 'Politics and the English Language' in the 21st Century Classroom, discusses how following of Orwell's six rules of English writing and speaking can have a place in the high school and university setting.

Connection to other works

Orwell's preoccupation with language as a theme can be seen in protagonist Gordon Comstock's dislike of advertising slogans in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, an early work of his. This preoccupation is also visible in Homage to Catalonia, and continued as an underlying theme of Orwell's work for the years after World War II.

The themes in "Politics and the English Language" anticipate Orwell's development of Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Michael Shelden calls Newspeak "the perfect language for a society of bad writers ... because it reduces the number of choices available to them". Shelden says that Newspeak first corrupts writers morally, then politically, "since it allows writers to cheat themselves and their readers with ready-made prose".

Occupational burnout

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout 

Occupational burn-out
Other names	Burn-out
A person who is experiencing psychological stress
Specialty	Psychology

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), occupational burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterized by "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy." While burnout may influence health and can be a reason for people contacting health services, it is not itself classified by the WHO as a medical condition.

In 1974, Herbert Freudenberger became the first researcher to publish in a psychology-related journal a paper that used the term "burnout." The paper was based on his observations of the volunteer staff (including himself) at a free clinic for drug addicts. He characterized burnout by a set of symptoms that includes exhaustion resulting from work's excessive demands as well as physical symptoms such as headaches and sleeplessness, "quickness to anger," and closed thinking. He observed that the burned-out worker "looks, acts, and seems depressed." After the publication of Freudenberger's original paper, interest in occupational burnout grew. Because the phrase "burnt-out" was part of the title of a 1961 Graham Greene novel A Burnt-Out Case, which dealt with a doctor working in the Belgian Congo with patients who had leprosy, the phrase may have been in use outside the psychology literature before Freudenberger employed it. Wolfgang Kaskcha has written on the early documentation of the subject.

Christina Maslach described burnout in terms of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (treating clients, students, and/or colleagues in a cynical way), and reduced feelings of work-related personal accomplishment. In 1981, Maslach and Susan Jackson published the first widely used instrument for assessing burnout, the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Originally focused on the human service professions (e.g., teachers, social workers), its application broadened to many other occupations. The WHO adopted a conceptualization of burnout that is consistent with Maslach's.

Today, there is robust evidence that burnout reflects a depressive condition.

Diagnosis

Classification

Burnout is not recognized as a distinct disorder in the current revision (dating from 2013) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). It's definitions for Adjustment Disorders, and Unspecified Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorder in some cases reflect the condition.

The Royal Dutch Medical Association treats "burnout" as a defined subtype of adjustment disorder. In The Netherlands burnout is included in handbooks and medical staff are trained in its diagnosis and treatment.

Regarding the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), the ICD-10 edition (current 1994-2021) classifies "burn-out" as a type of non-medical life-management difficulty under code Z73.0. It is considered to be one of the "factors influencing health status and contact with health services" and "should not be used" for "primary mortality coding". It is also considered one of the "problems related to life-management difficulty". The condition is only further defined as being a "state of vital exhaustion".

The ICD-10 also contains a medical condition category of "F43.8 Other reactions to severe stress" (sometimes known as neurasthenia), which some (including the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare) believe defines the more serious cases of burnout. Swedish sufferers of severe burnout are treated as having this medical condition. This category is in the same group as adjustment disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, other conditions caused by excessive stress that continue once the stressors have been removed.

A new version of the ICD, ICD-11, was released in June 2018, for first use in January 2022. It has an entry coded and titled "QD85 Burn-out". This describes the condition in this way:

Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions: 1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; 2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and 3) reduced professional efficacy. Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.

This condition is classified under "Problems associated with employment or unemployment" in the section on "Factors influencing health status or contact with health services." The section is devoted to reasons other than recognized diseases or health conditions for which people contact health services. In a statement made in May 2019, the WHO said "Burn-out is included in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an occupational phenomenon. It is not classified as a medical condition."

The ICD's browser and coding tool both attach the term "caregiver burnout" to category "QF27 Difficulty or need for assistance at home and no other household member able to render care". This acknowledges that burnout can occur in this context.

The ICD-11 also has the medical condition "6B4Y Other specified disorders specifically associated with stress", which is the equivalent of the ICD-10's F43.8.

The American Psychiatric Association says "it is estimated that 2 out of 5 psychiatrists have professional burnout," and believes that "addressing this problem has become one of the most pressing issues for medicine."

Instruments

In 1981, Maslach and Jackson developed the first widely used instrument for assessing burnout, namely, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Consistent with Maslach's conceptualization, the MBI operationalizes burnout as a three-dimensional syndrome consisting of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Other researchers have argued that burnout should be limited to fatigue and exhaustion. Exhaustion is considered to be burnout's core.

There are, however, other conceptualizations of burnout that differ from the conceptualization adopted by the WHO. Shirom and Melamed with their Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure conceptualize burnout in terms of physical exhaustion, cognitive weariness, and emotional exhaustion; however, an examination of Shirom and Melamed's emotional exhaustion subscale indicates that the subscale looks more like a measure of Maslach's concept of depersonalization. Demerouti and Bakker (with their Oldenburg Burnout Inventory) conceptualize burnout in terms of exhaustion and disengagement. There are other conceptualizations as well that are embodied in these instruments: the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, the Hamburg Burnout Inventory, Malach-Pines's Burnout Measure, and more. Kristensen et al. and Malach-Pines (who also published as Pines) advanced the view that burnout can also occur in non-work roles such as that of spouse.

The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), was released by Wilmar Schaufeli and Arnold Bakker in 1999. It measures vigour, dedication and absorption; positive counterparts to the values measured by the BMI.

In 2010, researchers from Mayo Clinic used portions of the MBI, along with other comprehensive assessments, to develop the Well-Being Index, a brief nine-item self-assessment tool designed to measure burnout and other dimensions of distress in health care workers specifically.

The core of all of these conceptualizations, including that of Freudenberger, is exhaustion. Alternatively, burnout is also now seen as involving the full array of depressive symptoms (e.g., low mood, cognitive alterations, sleep disturbance). Marked differences in understanding of what constitutes burnout have highlighted the need for consensus definition.

Subtypes

In 1991, Barry A. Farber proposed that there are three types of burnout:

• "wearout" and "brown-out," where someone gives up having had too much stress and/or too little reward
• "classic/frenetic burnout," where someone works harder and harder, trying to resolve the stressful situation and/or seek suitable reward for their work
• "underchallenged burnout," where someone has low stress, but the work is unrewarding.

Caregiver burnout

Bodies such as the US government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Diabetes Association, and Diabetes Singapore identify and promote the phenomenon of "diabetes burnout." This relates to the self-care of people with diabetes, particularly those with type-2 diabetes. "Diabetes burnout speaks to the physical and emotional exhaustion that people with diabetes experience when they have to deal with caring for themselves on a day-to-day basis. When you have to do so many things to stay in control then it does take a toll on your emotions... Once they get frustrated, some of them give up and stop (maintaining) a healthy diet, taking their medications regularly, going for exercises and this will result in poor diabetes control."

Autistic burnout

"Autistic burnout" is a term used to describe burnout when it occurs in people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this population, in addition to the typical symptoms it can cause "autistic regression," an increase of autistic symptoms. It is "regression" in the sense that the afflicted has typically had a similarly high level of symptoms in the distant past, and the burnout is perceived to be regressing them to this earlier state. It is also known as "decompensation", because the compensations the person usually makes are no longer being made. 

Such burnout sometimes leads to permanent disability or suicidal behavior. It need not be caused by workplace stress, but can also be caused by the stress of social interaction or other sources. Spoon theory is sometimes used to understand people in this situation.

Relationship with other conditions

A growing body of evidence suggests that burnout is etiologically, clinically, and nosologically similar to depression. In a study that directly compared depressive symptoms in burned out workers and clinically depressed patients, no diagnostically significant differences were found between the two groups; burned out workers reported as many depressive symptoms as clinically depressed patients. Moreover, a study by Bianchi, Schonfeld, and Laurent (2014) showed that about 90% of workers with full-blown burnout meet diagnostic criteria for depression. The view that burnout is a form of depression has found support in several recent studies. Some authors have recommended that the nosological concept of burnout be revised or even abandoned entirely given that it is not a distinct disorder and that there is no agreement on burnout diagnostic criteria.

Postpartum depression is a form of depression recognised by the DSM that differs mainly from major depressive disorder in that it has a specific trigger. 

Liu and van Liew wrote that "the term burnout is used so frequently that it has lost much of its original meaning. As originally used, burnout meant a mild degree of stress-induced unhappiness. The solutions ranged from a vacation to a sabbatical. Ultimately, it was used to describe everything from fatigue to a major depression and now seems to have become an alternative word for depression, but with a less serious significance" (p. 434). They also argue that burning out can trigger four distinct kinds of depression, each with their own recommended treatment. These are adjustment disorder with depressed mood, major depressive disorder, dysthymia, and bipolar disorder.

Tamar Kakiashvili et al. however argued that while there are significant overlaps in symptoms between burnout and major depressive disorder (aka "depression"), there is much endocrine evidence to suggest that the biological basis of burnout is vastly different to typical depression. They argued that antidepressants should not be used by people with burnout as they make the underlying hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis dysfunction worse.

Despite its name, atypical depression, which is seen in the above table, is not a rare form of depression; the cortisol profile of atypical depression is similar to the cortisol profile in burnout. Commentators advanced the view that burnout differs from depression because the cortisol profile of burnout differs from that of melancholic depression; however, as the above table indicates, burnout's cortisol profile is similar to that of atypical depression.

It has also been hypothesised that chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by burnout. It is suggested that the "burning out" of the body's stress symptom (by any of a wide range of causes) can lead to chronic fatigue. "Occupational burnout" is known for its exhausting effect on sufferers. Overtraining syndrome, a similar but lesser exhausting condition to CFS has been conceptualised as adjustment disorder, a common diagnosis for those burnt out.

Risk factors

Evidence suggests that the etiology of burnout is multifactorial, with dispositional factors playing an important, long-overlooked role. Cognitive dispositional factors implicated in depression have also been found to be implicated in burnout. One cause of burnout includes stressors that a person is unable to cope with fully.

Burnout is thought to occur when a mismatch is present between the nature of the job and the job the person is actually doing. A common indication of this mismatch is work overload, which sometimes involves a worker who survives a round of layoffs, but after the layoffs the worker finds that he or she is doing too much with too few resources. Overload may occur in the context of downsizing, which often does not narrow an organization's goals, but requires fewer employees to meet those goals. The research on downsizing, however, indicates that downsizing has more destructive effects on the health of the workers who survive the layoffs than mere burnout; these health effects include increased levels of sickness and greater risk of mortality.

The job demands-resources model has implications for burnout, as measured by the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI). Physical and psychological job demands were concurrently associated with the exhaustion, as measured by the OLBI. Lack of job resources was associated with the disengagement component of the OLBI. 

Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter identified six risk factors for burnout: mismatch in workload, mismatch in control, lack of appropriate awards, loss of a sense of positive connection with others in the workplace, perceived lack of fairness, and conflict between values.

Effects

Some research indicates that burnout is associated with reduced job performance, coronary heart disease, and mental health problems. Examples of emotional symptoms of occupational burnout include a lack of interest in the work being done, a decrease in work performance levels, feelings of helplessness, and trouble sleeping. With regard to mental health problems, research on dentists and physicians suggests that what is meant by burnout is a depressive syndrome. Thus reduced job performance and cardiovascular risk could be related to burnout because of burnout's tie to depression. Behavioral signs of occupational burnout are demonstrated through cynicism within work relationships, such as coworkers, clients, and the organization.

Other effects of burnout can manifest as lowered energy and productivity levels, with workers observed to be consistently late for work and feeling a sense of dread upon arriving. They can suffer decreased concentration, forgetfulness, increased frustration, or feelings of being overwhelmed. They may complain and feel negative, or feel apathetic and believe they have little impact on their coworkers and environment. Occupational burnout is also associated with absences, time missed from work, and thoughts of quitting.

Chronic burnout is also associated with cognitive impairments such as memory and attention.

There is a growing amount of research suggesting that burnout can manifest differently between genders, with greater incidence of depersonalisation among men and higher emotional exhaustion among women.

Treatment and prevention

Health condition treatment and prevention methods are often classified as "primary prevention" (stopping the condition occurring), "secondary prevention" (removing the condition that has occurred) and "tertiary prevention" (helping people live with the condition).

Primary prevention

Maslach believes that the only way to truly prevent burnout is through a combination of organizational change and education for the individual.

Maslach and Leiter postulated that burnout occurs when there is a disconnection between the organization and the individual with regard to what they called the six areas of worklife: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Resolving these discrepancies requires integrated action on the part of both the individual and the organization. With regard to workload, assuring that a worker has adequate resources to meet demands as well as ensuring a satisfactory work–life balance could help revitalize employees' energy. With regard to values, clearly stated ethical organizational values are important for ensuring employee commitment. Supportive leadership and relationships with colleagues are also helpful.

One approach for addressing these discrepancies focuses specifically on the fairness area. In one study employees met weekly to discuss and attempt to resolve perceived inequities in their job. The intervention was associated with decreases in exhaustion over time but not cynicism or inefficacy, suggesting that a broader approach is required.

Hätinen et al. suggest "improving job-person fit by focusing attention on the relationship between the person and the job situation, rather than either of these in isolation, seems to be the most promising way of dealing with burnout.". They also note that "at the individual level, cognitive-behavioural strategies have the best potential for success."

Burnout prevention programs have traditionally focused on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), cognitive restructuring, didactic stress management, and relaxation. CBT, relaxation techniques (including physical techniques and mental techniques), and schedule changes are the best-supported techniques for reducing or preventing burnout in a health-care setting. Mindfulness therapy has been shown to be an effective preventative for occupational burnout in medical practitioners. Combining both organizational and individual-level activities may be the most beneficial approach to reducing symptoms. A Cochrane review, however, reported that evidence for the efficacy of CBT in healthcare workers is of low quality, indicating that it is no better than alternative interventions.

For the purpose of preventing occupational burnout, various stress management interventions have been shown to help improve employee health and well-being in the workplace and lower stress levels. Training employees in ways to manage stress in the workplace have also been shown to be effective in preventing burnout. One study suggests that social-cognitive processes such as commitment to work, self-efficacy, learned resourcefulness, and hope may insulate individuals from experiencing occupational burnout. Increasing a worker's control over his or her job is another intervention has been shown to help counteract exhaustion and cynicism in the workplace.

Additional prevention methods include: starting the day with a relaxing ritual; yoga; adopting healthy eating, exercising, and sleeping habits; setting boundaries; taking breaks from technology; nourishing one's creative side, and learning how to manage stress.

Barry A. Farber suggests strategies like setting more achievable goals, focusing on the value of the work, and finding better ways of doing the job, can all be helpful ways of helping the stressed. People who don't mind the stress but want more reward can benefit from reassessing their work-life balance and implementing stress reduction techniques like meditation and exercise. Others with low stress, but are underwhelmed and bored with work, can benefit from seeking greater challenge.

Secondary and tertiary prevention (aka treatment)

Hätinen et al. list a number of common treatments, including treatment of any outstanding medical conditions, stress management, time management, depression treatment, psychotherapies, ergonomic improvement and other physiological and occupational therapy, physical exercise and relaxation. They have found that is more effective to have a greater focus on "group discussions on work related issues", and discussion about "work and private life interface" and other personal needs with psychologists and workplace representatives.

Jac JL van der Klink and Frank JH van Dijk suggest stress inoculation training, cognitive restructuring, graded activity and "time contingency" (progressing based on a timeline rather than patient's comfort) are effective methods of treatment.

Kakiashvili et al. say that "medical treatment of burnout is mostly symptomatic: it involves measures to prevent and treat the symptoms." They say the use of anxiolytics and sedatives to treat burnout related stress is effective, but does nothing to change the sources of stress. They say the poor sleep often caused by burnout (and the subsequent fatigue) is best treated with hypnotics and CBT (within which they include "sleep hygiene, education, relaxation training, stimulus control, and cognitive therapy"). They advise against the use of antidepressants as they worsen the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis dysfunction at the core of burnout. They also believe "vitamins and minerals are crucial in addressing adrenal and HPA axis dysfunction", noting the importance of specific nutrients.

Light therapy (similar to that used for Seasonal Affective Disorder) may be effective.

Burnout also often causes a decline in the ability to update information in working memory. This is not easily treated with CBT.

One reason it is difficult to treat the three standard symptoms of burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy), is because they respond to the same preventive or treatment activities in different ways.

Exhaustion is more easily treated than cynicism and professional inefficacy, which tend to be more resistant to treatment. Research suggests that intervention actually may worsen the professional efficacy of a person who originally exhibited low professional efficacy.

Employee rehabilitation is a tertiary preventive intervention which means the strategies used in rehabilitation are meant to alleviate burnout symptoms in individuals who are already affected without curing them. Such rehabilitation of the working population includes multidisciplinary activities with the intent of maintaining and improving employees' working ability and ensuring a supply of skilled and capable labor in society.

Compassion fatigue

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion_fatigue 

Compassion fatigue is a condition characterized by emotional and physical exhaustion leading to a diminished ability to empathize or feel compassion for others, often described as the negative cost of caring. It is sometimes referred to as secondary traumatic stress (STS). According to the Professional Quality of Life Scale, burnout and secondary traumatic stress are two interwoven elements of compassion fatigue.

Compassion fatigue is considered to be the result of working directly with victims of disasters, trauma, or illness, especially in the health care industry. Individuals working in other helping professions are also at risk for experiencing compassion fatigue. These include child protection workers, veterinarians, teachers, palliative care workers, journalists, police officers, firefighters, animal welfare workers, public librarians, health unit coordinators, and Student Affairs professionals. Non-professionals, such as family members and other informal caregivers of people who have a chronic illness, may also experience compassion fatigue. The term was first coined in 1992 by Carla Joinson to describe the negative impact hospital nurses were experiencing as a result of their repeated, daily exposure to patient emergencies.

People who experience compassion fatigue may exhibit a variety of symptoms including lowered concentration, numbness or feelings of helplessness, irritability, lack of self-satisfaction, withdrawal, aches and pains, or work absenteeism.

Journalism analysts argue that news media have caused widespread compassion fatigue in society by saturating newspapers and news shows with decontextualized images and stories of tragedy and suffering. This has caused the public to become desensitized or resistant to helping people who are suffering.

History

Compassion fatigue has been studied by the field of traumatology, where it has been called the "cost of caring" for people facing emotional pain.

Compassion fatigue has also been called secondary victimization, secondary traumatic stress, vicarious traumatization, and secondary survivor. Other related conditions are rape-related family crisis and "proximity" effects on female partners of war veterans. Compassion fatigue has been called a form of burnout in some literature. However, unlike compassion fatigue, “burnout” is related to chronic tedium in careers and the workplace, rather than exposure to specific kinds of client problems such as trauma. fMRI-rt research suggests the idea of compassion without engaging in real-life trauma is not exhausting itself. According to these, when empathy was analyzed with compassion through neuroimaging, empathy showed brain region activations where previously identified to be related to pain whereas compassion showed warped neural activations.

There is some recent academic literature suggesting that compassion fatigue is a misnomer and should be replaced with the term, empathy fatigue. Evidence supporting this change comes from a burgeoning literature examining the neurophysiology of empathy versus compassion meditation practices. Whereas empathy can be defined as feeling what another feels and cumulative negative effects over time can come from the accretion of the assumptions of others painful emotions and experience. Compassion relates to a feeling of caring, loving or desire to improve the lot of others and may or may not require awareness of others feeling and emotions, but instead arises from a humanistic or even altruistic desire for subject to be free of suffering. Studies of training of compassion practices among health care provides has demonstrated positive effects compared to empathy practices which do not improve provider functioning.

In academic literature, the more technical term secondary traumatic stress disorder may be used. The term "compassion fatigue" is considered somewhat euphemistic. Compassion fatigue also carries sociological connotations, especially when used to analyse the behavior of mass donations in response to the media response to disasters. One measure of compassion fatigue is in the ProQOL, or Professional Quality of Life Scale. Another is the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale.

Risk factors

Several personal attributes place a person at risk for developing compassion fatigue. Persons who are overly conscientious, perfectionists, and self-giving are more likely to suffer from secondary traumatic stress. Those who have low levels of social support or high levels of stress in personal life are also more likely to develop STS. In addition, previous histories of trauma that led to negative coping skills, such as bottling up or avoiding emotions, having small support systems, increase the risk for developing STS.

Many organizational attributes in the fields where STS is most common, such as the healthcare field, contribute to compassion fatigue among the workers. For example, a “culture of silence” where stressful events such as deaths in an intensive-care unit are not discussed after the event is linked to compassion fatigue. Lack of awareness of symptoms and poor training in the risks associated with high-stress jobs can also contribute to high rates of STS.

In healthcare professionals

Between 16% and 85% of health care workers in various fields develop compassion fatigue. In one study, 86% of emergency room nurses met the criteria for compassion fatigue. In another study, more than 25% of ambulance paramedics were identified as having severe ranges of post-traumatic symptoms. In addition, 34% of hospice nurses in another study met the criteria for secondary traumatic stress/compassion fatigue.

Compassion Fatigue is the emotional and physical distress caused by treating and helping patients that are deeply in need, which can desensitize healthcare professionals causing them a lack of empathy for future patients. There are three important components of Compassion Fatigue: Compassion satisfaction, secondary stress and burnout. It is important to note that burnout is not the same as Compassion Fatigue; Burnout is the stress and mental exhaustion caused by the inability to cope with the environment and continuous physical and mental demands.

Healthcare professionals experiencing compassion fatigue may find it difficult to continue doing their jobs. While many believe that these diagnoses affect workers who have been practicing in the field the longest, the opposite proves true. Young physicians and nurses are at an increased risk for both burnout and compassion fatigue. A study published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine revealed that medical residents develop Compassion Fatigue and within this group medical residents who work overnight shifts and that work more than eighty hours a week are in higher risk of developing Compassion Fatigue. In these professionals with higher risk of suffering from Compassion Fatigue, burnout was one of the major components. Burnout is a prevalent and critical contemporary problem that can be categorized as suffering from: emotional exhaustion, de-personalization, and low sense of personal accomplishment. They can be exposed to trauma while trying to deal with compassion fatigue, potentially pushing them out of their career field. If they decide to stay, it can negatively affect the therapeutic relationship they have with patients because it depends on forming an empathetic, trusting relationship that could be difficult to make in the midst of compassion fatigue. Because of this, healthcare institutions are placing increased importance on supporting their employees emotional needs so they can better care for patients.

Another name and concept directly tied to compassion fatigue is moral injury. Moral injury in the context of healthcare was directly named in the Stat News article by Drs. Wendy Dean and Simon Talbot, entitled "Physicians aren’t ‘burning out.’ They’re suffering from moral injury." The article and concept goes on to explain that physicians (in the United States) are caught in double and triple and quadruple binds between their obligations of electronic health records, their own student loans, the requirements for patient load through the hospital and number of procedures performed – all while working towards the goal of trying to provide the best care and healing to patients possible. However, the systemic issues facing physicians often cause deep distress because the patients are suffering, despite a physician's best efforts. This concept of Moral Injury in healthcare is the expansion of the discussion around compassion fatigue and 'burnout.'

Caregivers

Caregivers for dependent people can also experience compassion fatigue, which can become a cause of abusive behavior in caring professions. It results from the taxing nature of showing compassion for someone whose suffering is continuous and unresolvable. One may still care for the person as required by policy, however, the natural human desire to help them is significantly diminished desensitization and lack of enthusiasm for patient care. This phenomenon also occurs among professionals involved in long-term health care, and for those who have institutionalized family members. These people may develop symptoms of depression, stress, and trauma. Those who are primary care providers for patients with terminal illnesses are at a higher risk of developing these symptoms. In the medical profession, this is often described as "burnout": the more specific terms secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma are also used. Some professionals may be predisposed to compassion fatigue due to personal trauma.

Mental health professionals

Mental health professionals are another group that often suffer from compassion fatigue, particularly when they treat those who have suffered extensive trauma. A study on mental health professionals that were providing clinical services to Katrina victims found that rates of negative psychological symptoms increased in the group. Of those interviewed, 72% reported experiencing anxiety, 62% experienced increased suspicion about the world around them, and 42% reported feeling increasingly vulnerable after treating the Katrina victims. Social workers are being exposed to stressful experiences in their day to day work activities. Many social workers are at a constant battle not only within their casework but within themselves. A social worker's career comes at a personal price with putting personal beliefs aside, managing compassion fatigue, and getting the mental help needed to cope with the traumas that are dealt with daily. The way a social worker feels must be put aside when in the field due to the possibility of those feeling swaying the appropriate action that must be taken. If a social worker is consciously aware of compassion fatigue and burnout happening within themselves early on, then they hold capability to seek the help needed to combat them before any negative impression is felt externally. Being able to objectively evaluate situations at work aides in keeping social workers professionally safe. Self-awareness of compassion fatigue and burnout flow into the mental and physical management that keep those feelings under control. When a social worker puts in the time to take care of themselves their personal life and work life are both positively influenced.

Critical care personnel

Critical care personnel have the highest reported rates of burnout, a syndrome associated with progression to compassion fatigue. These providers witness high rates of patient disease and death, leaving them to question whether their work is truly meaningful. Additionally, top-tier providers are expected to know an increasing amount of medical information along with experienced high ethical dilemmas/medical demands. This has created a workload-reward imbalance—or decreased compassion satisfaction. Compassion satisfaction, relates to the “positive payment” that comes from caring. With little compassion satisfaction, both critical care physicians and nurses have reported the above examples as leading factors for developing burnout and compassion fatigue. Those caring for people who have experienced trauma can experience a change in how they view the world; they see it more negatively. It can negatively affect the worker's sense of self, safety, and control. In ICU personnel, burnout and compassion fatigue has been associated with decreased quality of care and patient satisfaction, as well as increased medical errors, infection rates, and death rates, making this issue one of concern not only for providers but patients. These outcomes also impact organization finances. According to the Institute of Medicine, preventable adverse drug events or harmful medication errors (associated with compassion fatigue/burnout) occur in 1% to 10% of hospital admissions and account for a $3.5 billion cost.

Those with a better ability to empathize and be compassionate are at a higher risk of developing compassion fatigue. Because of that, healthcare professionals—especially those who work in critical care, are regularly exposed to death, trauma, high stress environments, long work days, difficult patients, pressure from a patient’s family, and conflicts with other staff members- are at higher risk. These exposures increase the risk for developing compassion fatigue and burnout, which often makes it hard for professionals to stay in the healthcare career field. Those who stay in the healthcare field after developing compassion fatigue or burnout are likely to experience a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, unwanted images or thoughts, insomnia, stress, desensitization and irritability. As a result, these healthcare professionals may later develop substance abuse, depression, and suicide. A 2018 study that examined differences in compassion fatigue in nurses based on their substance use found significant increases for those who used cigarettes, sleeping pills, energy drinks, antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. Unfortunately, despite recent, targeted efforts being made to reduce burnout, it appears that the problem is increasing. In 2011, a study conducted by the Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-Being at Mayo Clinic reported that 45% of physicians in the United States had one or more symptoms of burnout. In 2014, that number had increased to 54%.

In student affairs professionals

In response to the changing landscape of post secondary institutions, sometimes as a result of having a more diverse and marginalized student population, both campus services and the roles of student affairs professionals have evolved. These changes are efforts to manage the increases in traumatic events and crises.

Due to the exposure to student crises and traumatic events, student affairs professionals, as front line workers, are at risk for developing compassion fatigue. Such crises may include sexual violence, suicidal ideation, severe mental health episodes, and hate crimes/discrimination.

Some research shows that almost half of all university staff named psychological distress as a factor contributing to overall occupational stress. This group also demonstrated emotional exhaustion, job dissatisfaction, and intention to quit their jobs within the next year, symptoms associated with compassion fatigue.

Factors contributing to compassion fatigue in student affairs professionals

Student affairs professionals who are more emotionally connected to the students with whom they work and who display an internal locus of control are found to be more likely to develop compassion fatigue as compared to individuals who have an external locus of control and are able to maintain boundaries between themselves and those with whom they work.

In lawyers

Recent research shows that a growing number of attorneys who work with victims of trauma are exhibiting a high rate of compassion fatigue symptoms. In fact, lawyers are four times more likely to suffer from depression than the general public. They also have a higher rate of suicide and substance abuse. Most attorneys, when asked, stated that their formal education lacked adequate training in dealing with trauma. Besides working directly with trauma victims, one of the main reasons attorneys can develop compassion fatigue is because of the demanding case loads, and long hours that are typical to this profession.

Prevention

There is an effort to prepare those in the healthcare professions to combat compassion fatigue through resiliency training. Teaching workers how to relax in stressful situations, be intentional in their duties and work with integrity, find people and resources who are supportive and understand the risks of compassion fatigue, and focus on self-care are all components of this training.

Personal self-care

Stress reduction and anxiety management practices have been shown to be effective in preventing and treating STS. Taking a break from work, participating in breathing exercises, exercising, and other recreational activities all help reduce the stress associated with STS. Conceptualizing one's own ability with self-integration from a theoretical and practice perspective helps to combat criticized or devalued phase of STS. In addition, establishing clear professional boundaries and accepting the fact that successful outcomes are not always achievable can limit the effects of STS.

Social self-care

Social support and emotional support can help practitioners maintain a balance in their worldview.^[54] Maintaining a diverse network of social support, from colleagues to pets, promotes a positive psychological state and can protect against STS.

Self-compassion as self-care

In order to be the best benefit for clients, practitioners must maintain a state of psychological well-being. Unaddressed compassion fatigue may decrease a practitioners ability to effectively help their clients. Some counselors who use self-compassion as part of their self-care regime have had higher instances of psychological functioning. The counselors use of self-compassion may lessen experiences of vicarious trauma that the counselor might experience through hearing clients stories. Self-compassion as a self-care method is beneficial for both clients and counselors.

Mindfulness as self-care

Self-awareness as a method of self-care might help to alleviate the impact of vicarious trauma (compassion fatigue). Students who took a 15 week course that emphasized stress reduction techniques and the use of mindfulness in clinical practice had significant improvements in therapeutic relationships and counseling skills. The practice of mindfulness, according to Buddhist tradition is to release a person from “suffering” and to also come to a state of consciousness of and relationship to other people's suffering. Mindfulness utilizes the path to consciousness through the deliberate practice of engaging “the body, feelings, states of mind, and experiential phenomena (dharma).” The following therapeutic interventions may be used as mindfulness self-care practices:

• Somatic therapy (body)
• Psychotherapy (states of mind)
• Emotion focused therapy (feelings)
• Gestalt therapy (experiential phenomena)

Scales Used for Assessment	Administration	Measure	Accessible
Professional Quality of Life Measure ProQOL	self -test	compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress	online, available
Compassion Fatigue and/Satisfaction Self Test for Helpers	self-test	compassion fatigue	online, available
Maslach Burnout Inventory	administered	burnout	available for purchase

Guilt-shame-fear spectrum of cultures

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guilt-shame-fear spectrum of cultures 

 

In cultural anthropology, the distinction between a guilt society (or guilt culture), shame society (also shame culture or honor-shame culture), and a fear society (or culture of fear) has been used to categorize different cultures. The differences can apply to how behavior is governed with respect to government laws, business rules, or social etiquette. This classification has been applied especially to so called "apollonian" societies, sorting them according to the emotions they use to control individuals (especially children) and maintaining social order, swaying them into norm obedience and conformity.

• In a guilt society, control is maintained by creating and continually reinforcing the feeling of guilt (and the expectation of punishment now or in the afterlife) for certain condemned behaviors. The guilt-innocence world view focuses on law and punishment. A person in this type of culture may ask, "Is my behavior fair or unfair?" This type of culture also emphasizes individual conscience.
• In a shame society, the means of control is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism. The shame-honor worldview seeks an "honor balance" and can lead to revenge dynamics. A person in this type of culture may ask, "Shall I look ashamed if I do X?" or "How people will look at me if I do Y?" Shame cultures are typically based on the concepts of pride and honour, and appearances are what count.
• In a fear society, control is kept by the fear of retribution. Fear-Power worldview focuses on physical dominance. A person in this culture may ask, "Will someone hurt me if I do this?"

The terminology was popularized by Ruth Benedict in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, who described American culture as a "guilt culture" and Japanese culture as a "shame culture".

Guilt societies

In a guilt society, the primary method of social control is the inculcation of feelings of guilt for behaviors that the individual believes to be undesirable. A prominent feature of guilt societies is the provision of sanctioned releases from guilt for certain behaviors, whether before or after the fact. There is opportunity in such cases for authority figures to derive power, monetary and/or other advantages, etc. by manipulating the conditions of guilt and the forgiveness of guilt.

Paul Hiebert characterizes the guilt society as follows:

Guilt is a feeling that arises when we violate the absolute standards of morality within us, when we violate our conscience. A person may suffer from guilt although no one else knows of his or her misdeed; this feeling of guilt is relieved by confessing the misdeed and making restitution. True guilt cultures rely on an internalized conviction of sin as the enforcer of good behavior, not, as shame cultures do, on external sanctions. Guilt cultures emphasize punishment and forgiveness as ways of restoring the moral order; shame cultures stress self-denial and humility as ways of restoring the social order. (Hiebert 1985, 213)

Geographical distribution

• Guilt-Innocence: more associated with Judeo-Christian religions
• Shame-Honour: more associated with Arabic culture and Eastern religions
• Fear-Power: more associated with animist and tribal societies

England

Anglo-Saxon England is particularly notable as a shame culture, and this trait survived even after its conversion to Christianity, which is typically a guilt culture. Other examples of shame culture under Christianity are the cultures of Mexico, Andalusia and generally Christian Slavic and Mediterranean societies.^[9][10]

China

In China, the concept of shame is widely accepted due to Confucian teachings. In Analects, Confucius is quoted as saying:

Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously.

Japan

The first book to cogently explain the workings of the Japanese society for the Western reader was The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict. This book was produced under less than ideal circumstances since it was written during the early years of World War II in an attempt to understand the people who had become such a powerful enemy of the West. Under the conditions of war, it was impossible to do field research in Japan.

Without being able to study in Japan, Benedict relied on newspaper clippings, histories, literature, films, and interviews of Japanese-Americans. Her studies came to conclusions about Japanese culture and society that are still widely criticized today, both in America and Japan.

Romani

To the Roma, though living as local minorities in mostly Christian countries, the concept of lajav ("shame") is important, while the concept of bezax ("sin") does not have such significance.

Detachment (philosophy)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachment_(philosophy) 

The lotus symbolizes non-attachment in some religions in Asia owing to its ability to soar over the muddy waters and produce an immaculate flower.

Detachment, also expressed as non-attachment, is a state in which a person overcomes their attachment to desire for things, people or concepts of the world and thus attains a heightened perspective. It is considered a wise virtue and is promoted in various Eastern religions, such as Jainism, Taoism and Buddhism.

Importance of the term

Detachment as release from desire and consequently from suffering is an important principle, or even ideal, in the Bahá'í Faith, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Stoicism, and Taoism.

In Buddhist and Hindu religious texts the opposite concept is expressed as upādāna, translated as "attachment". Attachment, that is the inability to practice or embrace detachment, is viewed as the main obstacle towards a serene and fulfilled life. Many other spiritual traditions identify the lack of detachment with the continuous worries and restlessness produced by desire and personal ambitions.

Jainism

Detachment is one of the supreme ideals of Jainism, together with non-violence. Non-possession/Non-attachment is one of the Mahavratas, the five great vows Jain monks observe. However, detachment is meaningful if accompanied by the knowledge of self as a soul; moreover, it can serve as the means for attaining self realization. According to Jain saint Shrimad Rajchandra, for those who are lifeless ritualists mere bodily restraint does not become helpful in attaining self-realization. Detachment and such other attributes are the requisites for attaining it. Therefore undertake such activities, but one must not get stuck there. One cannot get rid of the root cause of birth and death in absence of realization. As such, a Jain must resort to detachment etc. for the purpose of gaining realization; does not insist that the path of liberation lies in bearing the hardships that do not lead to reduction in defilement.

Baha'i Faith

Thou hast inquired about detachment. It is well known to thee that by detachment is intended the detachment of the soul from all else but God. That is, it consisteth in soaring up to an eternal station, wherein nothing that can be seen between heaven and earth deterreth the seeker from the Absolute Truth. In other words, he is not veiled from divine love or from busying himself with the mention of God by the love of any other thing or by his immersion therein.

The second definition is in the Words of Wisdom:

The essence of detachment is for man to turn his face towards the courts of the Lord, to enter His Presence, behold His Countenance, and stand as witness before Him.

— Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 155)

Buddhism

Regarding the concept of detachment, or non-attachment, Buddhist texts in Pali mention nekkhamma, a word generally translated as "renunciation". This word also conveys more specifically the meaning of "giving up the world and leading a holy life" or "freedom from lust, craving and desires."

The writings of Milarepa, are canonical Mahayana Buddhist texts that emphasize the temporary nature of the physical body and the need for non-attachment.

Detachment is a central concept in Zen Buddhist philosophy. One of the most important technical Chinese terms for detachment is "wú niàn" (無念), which literally means "no thought." This does not signify the literal absence of thought, but rather the state of being "unstained" (bù rán 不染) by thought. Therefore, "detachment" is being detached from one's thoughts. It is to separate oneself from one's own thoughts and opinions in detail as to not be harmed mentally and emotionally by them.

Christianity

Eastern Christian monasticism cultivated practices of detached watchfulness which were designed to calm the passions and lead to an ongoing state of calm detachment known as apatheia.

In Western Christianity, Ignatian spirituality encourages detachment, sometimes referred to as indifference, in order to maximize a person's availability to God and to their neighbors.

Hinduism

The Hindu view of detachment comes from the understanding of the nature of existence and the true ultimate state sought is that of being in the moment. In other words, while one is responsible and active, one does not worry about the past or future. The detachment is towards the result of one's actions rather than towards everything in life. This concept is cited extensively within Puranic and Vedic literature, for example:

One who performs his duty without attachment, surrendering the results unto the Supreme Lord, is unaffected by sinful action, as the lotus is untouched by muddy water.

— Bhagavad Gita 5.10:

Vairagya is a Hindu term which is often translated as detachment.

Taoism

The Tao Te Ching expressed the concept (in chapter 44) as:

Fame or Self: Which matters more? Self or Wealth: Which is more precious? Gain or Loss: Which is more painful? He who is attached to things will suffer much. He who saves will suffer heavy loss. A contented man is rarely disappointed. He who knows when to stop does not find himself in trouble. He will stay forever safe.