Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

College of Education and Human Services

Department

Counseling, Rehabilitation Counseling & Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Roy Tunick

Committee Co-Chair

James Bartee

Committee Member

Jeffrey Daniels

Committee Member

Sebastian Diaz

Committee Member

Ed Jacobs

Abstract

Psychological treatment of the sexual offender population continues to be an arduous task for therapists. There is evidence that many therapists will experience burnout at some point during their careers. Providing treatment in a burned out state can cause harm to the therapist, client, and community (Barnett, Baker, Elman, & Schoener, 2007). It is necessary to determine the variables that influence burnout in order to increase awareness and to address the variables at an organization and personal level in order to identify therapists that may be at risk of burnout. In this I study examined the relationship of variables identified through literature and the influence each variable has on the development of burnout. The variables are gender, current age, level of training, years of experience, theoretical orientation, supervision, percentage of sex offenders on caseload, individual or group therapy and primary work setting. Of the 210 ATSA listserv members that responded to this study, one hundred fifty one participants were used in the analysis. It was determined through the use of CHAID analyses that the most significant variable that predicted burnout was work setting, specifically prison/correctional settings and outpatient setting. The information gained from this study will assist in increasing awareness of burnout which in turn may lead to the implementation of interventions for prevention (Wicks, 2008).

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