PROFESSIONALLY IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF A PSYCHOLOGIST IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PROBLEM OF EMOTIONAL BURNOUT

Abstract

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the relationship between indicators of emotional burnout and indicators of empathy and sociability as professionally significant qualities of the personality of a psychologist. As a result of a theoretical study of the problem, it turned out that representatives of socionomic professions, which include the profession of a psychologist, are subjected to significant psycho-emotional stress. Such professional activities potentially contain a danger of traumatic situations and the likelihood of occupational stress. Given the specifics of the profession, psychologists use their own personality and its resources in professional activities. Therefore, there exist rather stringent requirements for the personal and professional qualities of specialists in this profile. The development of professionally significant qualities of the personality of a psychologist during vocational training can ensure the effectiveness of his future professional activity and create a certain resource for self-perception and self-regulation. The empirical part of this research was to study the relationship between indicators of emotional burnout, empathy, and sociability as professionally significant qualities for the personality of a psychologist. For these are the qualities that researchers identify as important for a professional psychologist. An empirical study using valid and reliable diagnostic techniques reveals that there are individual differences in empathy and sociability in people with different levels of emotional burnout. It has been empi-rically proved that people with a high level of emotional burnout are characterized by a low level of empathy and sociability. Those ones with a low level of emotional burnout are characterized by a high value of general empathy and sociability. It is proved that the development of such professionally important qualities as empathy and sociability have an impact on the level of psychologist’s burnout.