När kvinnor tar slut och män går in i väggen

Hur utbrändhet presenteras i medierna

Abstract

The purpose is to study the establishment of the burnout-syndrome in Swedish media. The material consists of 350 articles from 2003, publiched in four major newpapers: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet and Expressen. In the 90's a new kind of sickness-profile seemed to take shape with diffuse stress-symptoms — insomnia, anxiety and extreme fatigue. In order to understand and explain the development, journalists started to use the word burnout. A database-search shows a highly increased use of the word in the four newspapers mentioned above during the last decade.

The burnout-concept seems to have become the main-metaphor for the increasing sick leave at the time. Newspapers' articles form two different kinds of burnout-syndromes: 1. A psychological female burnout-syndrome, where women talk analytically and emotionally about their symptoms, often in self-disparaging terms — they become worn out. 2. A physical male burnout-syndrome, where sportsmen — both athletes and coaches — analyse their dysfunctional bodies, using mainly machine-metaphors such as "running out of steam", "getting rust" — they are actively hitting the wall.