In this article on my series on the causes and solutions to physician burnout I wish to unearth not only one major cause of this problem but also help to touch on an irony that drives a large number of individuals into this grueling profession.

When you ask a budding physician why they have chosen to become a doctor you will often hear such things as: the desire to help people, the intellectual challenge, the desire to make a difference in the world, the prestige, the good life style etc.

One of the reasons that rarely comes up is the "need to be needed". Given the current spate of cases of physician burnout though I would like to suggest that in many cases this is the result of such a need.

How does such a need manifest itself? Well often it does so as an inability on the part of the physician to say no to the patient when it is necessary or in their best interests. The doctor may "need" the patient to frequent their practice for many reasons: to give themselves a sense of purpose, a feeling of adequacy, to distract themselves from the sadness they might feel within, to help boost their own self worth and self esteem, or simply for monetary reasons.

Whatever the reasons, what gets set up is a doctor-patient co-dependency that feeds the needs of both parties, at least for a while. This co-dependent relationship does have its limitations however.

For instance, the doctor's energy and time resources are limited and once they have made an unspoken contract to supply the patient whatever is needed i.e. effectively taking over full responsibility for the patient's health from them, then they have set themselves on course to burnout.

Often the problem doesn't become manifest as one until this late stage. At such time the doctor finds him/herself unable to keep up their end of the contract, the patient either gets ill or they complain to the licensing body and everything starts to unravel.

What is the answer to this dilemma? Well in my view it is necessary for a physician to stop and become acutely aware of the presence of such a need operating within them. In the case where a physician needs patients to boost their self esteem for instance, such an issue can often be spotted in the physician's earliest behavioral role within their own families of origin.

In such cases the physician-to-be is often the one who is "selected for" or "accepts" the role of emotionally or physically looking after an ailing family member and this then becomes what their self esteem and identity get structured around.

In order to free one's self from this type of co-dependency trap it is necessary for the physician to:

1. Recognize that they have this problem and
2. To release the need from within them once and for all.

The latter can be done through a new and powerful life transforming modality called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) (MRP) that I have written about extensively here.

If you wish to know more about MRP or to experience it directly kindly visit the web link below where you can download free an interactive audio clip on it.