About me
Dr. Beverly Potter, workplace psychologist and author of information packed books, including Overcoming job Burnout, The Worrywart's Companion, The Way of the Ronin, Finding a Path with a Heart, From Conflict to Cooperation, Beyond Consciousness, Brain Boosters, Getting Peak Performance, High Performance Goal Setting, and others. She earned her Doctorate from Stanford University and her Masters of Science from San Francisco State.
My work blends humanistic psychology and Eastern philosophies with principles of behavior psychology for the objective of creating a strategy for handling the many challenges we're encountering in today's workplace.
The Worrywart's Companion
Twenty-One Ways to Soothe Yourself
& Worry Smart
McGraw-Hill, 2008
The job of worry is to anticipate danger before it arises and identify possible perils, to come up with ways to lessen the risks, and to rehearse what you plan to do. Worrywarts get stuck in identifying danger as they immerse themselves in the dread associated with the threat which may be real or, more likely, imagined. They spin out an endless loop of melodrama, blowing everything out of proportion. "What if I have a heart attack?" "What if there is an earthquake?" "What if someone breaks in when I'm asleep?"
While worrywarts insist worrying is helpful, little is solved. Stuck in thinking ruts, you stop living in the here and now -- the present moment. Worrywarting is torment -- a kind of self-imposed purgatory that makes you feel bad, stresses you out and wastes precious moments of your life.
Worse yet, worry begets more worry, setting into motion a vicious cycle of frightening thoughts and anxious response. It is self-perpetuating, pushing into greater anxiety and more worry. Allowed to continue unchecked, chronic worry can evolve into panic attacks and, in extreme cases to agoraphobia, which is a paralyzing fear of having a panic attack, especially in public. It can be so severe that, in the worse cases, the sufferer can’t leave home.
Are you a worrywart? Take the quiz to find out.
Overcoming Job Burnout
How to Renew Enthusiasm for Work
Ronin Publishing, 2005
Without work, all life goes rotten,
But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.
—Albert Camus
A “soulless” work day can leave you feeling drained and used up. Soulless work dampens enthusiasm until your motivation is extinguished. You retain your skills and expertise, but your will to perform — the spirit within you — dies. Burnout is a malaise of the spirit. As burnout progresses your motivation, that mysterious force that gets you moving is damaged — in the worst cases, even destroyed.
Service providers like nurses, counselors, and police officers are hardest hit as they become cynical about their work and openly hostile to the very people they’re dedicated to serving. Jobs that involve life or death decisions such as being a platoon captain or a heart surgeon have high burnout potential. Managers, team leaders, and others who work with people are also at high risk. Other burnout-prone professions are those that require working under demanding time schedules such as newspaper journalism; those that require exacting attention such as air-traffic controllers; those that involve detailed work, such as proofreaders; those that are “politically incorrect” such as nuclear plant supervisors and IRS agents, for example. No one is immune from job burnout.
No one is immune from burnout. Any person, in any profession, at any level can become a victim of job burnout. Symptoms of job burnout.
