doctoralThesis
Teorização e conceitualização em psicologia: o caso do Burnout
Fecha
2016-06-03Registro en:
FONTES, Flávio Fernandes. Teorização e conceitualização em psicologia: o caso do Burnout. 2016. 127f. Tese (Doutorado em Psicologia) - Centro de Ciências Humanas, Letras e Artes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 2016.
Autor
Fontes, Flávio Fernandes
Resumen
Philosophical and conceptual research has been repeatedly deemed necessary in psychology, given the characterization of the discipline as method-driven and overly focused on data collection. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is presented as a research area that tries to counter this problem, by providing a framework for reflection and metatheoretical work within psychology, in order to avoid the pitfalls of a mechanical application of methodological procedures. Some guidelines are provided on how to perform conceptual analysis in psychology: it must take into account the linguistic dimension (word and metaphor) of a given psychological object and follow its transformation in history. Following this approach, the study of an important object in work psychology is carried out: the burnout syndrome, which can be defined as an exhaustion of the worker in the context of his work activity. A detailed analysis of the contributions of the two most important authors in the history of the concept is provided: Herbert J. Freudenberger and Christina Maslach. The context in which it appears and the underlying philosophy of science that gives support to this new object are scrutinized, emphasizing the difference between a clinical and psychoanalytical perspective (Freudenberger) and a positivist perspective focused on measurement (Maslach). We follow conceptual and spelling changes suffered by the psychological object in the hands of both authors, emphasizing how the definition has been instable. It is argued that two metaphors are the most stable elements in the history of this psychological object: the syndrome metaphor and the metaphor of man as an energy system. The first one has difficulties in justifying itself, while the second one establishes the central aspect of burnout, exhaustion.