Welcome to Institutionalized - a podcast and ongoing conversation between Dr. Jordan Schaul and myself that is hosted on Fireside Chat App. We discuss the forces that have contributed to the burnout epidemic, workplace trauma, chronic low morale that are now manifesting as the Great Resignation.
We dissect the acculturation process we all undergo into organizations and institutions to embody the ideal attributes that will enable us to survive and supposedly thrive, and the impact this process has on wellbeing that cannot be fixed or be made resilient in these institutional contexts.
In this episode, we take a look at several industries such civil service, academia, medicine, healthcare and veterinary science.
We cover topics such as:
Merit vs nepotism
The rise of Chief Wellbeing Officers
Burnout, Moral injury as the burnout de jour and why this is problematic
Assimilation, assimilation trauma & professional identity
Institutional messaging that give us all the wrong impression of what we’ll experience on the inside.
This is an example of one of the things you’ll be hearing in the recording.
About Chief Wellbeing Officers:
“…the ones being appointed to these well officer roles are often someone internal. Someone that's trusted who has demonstrated a level of care, compassion, initiative and are keen to create the so-called change.
But if they're the golden child of the institution, how effective would they actually be at creating change when what they've been doing to get themselves recognition is complying or behaving according to these preferred or idealized values of that institution.”'“…someone who embodies the ideals of an institution
might be able to support some change, but it's not in their best interest to support change because whatever they've been doing has been working to their advantage. So there's no real incentive to change anything about the system.”
We also briefly discuss the new concept known as assimilation trauma. I developed this concept years ago to fill in the gaps within the physician and workplace burnout literature and ‘wellness’ initiatives and imposter syndrome. The constellation of symptoms resemble trauma responses more than the consequences of poor work/life balance, inefficiencies, imposter syndrome or resilience deficits, terms that have been used to gaslight us all. Since then, I teamed up with my co-liberator and friend Dr. Rupi Legha to confront and challenge the foundation of what has been perceived as a noble profession rather than an abusive system in our upcoming publication in BMJ Medical Humanities. We don’t hold back and we promise this piece is challenging and fierce.
You can access the pre-print HERE.
This work aims to acknowledge how EVERY trainee is detrimentally impacted through the iterative assimilation process we detail in the paper and that we’ve all be gaslit to believe burnout is the cause of deep suffering rather than the toxic training culture and its representative authorities who transmit its attitudes, norms and behaviours. If a training or workplace culture had a personality, it could easily fit the description of narcissistic traits described in my earlier pieces found here, here and here that form an oppressive to abusive relationship with trainees. If you want to take it further, you can even draw parallels between a dysfunctional family described here and the medical training community to work out who is the most to least assimilated in the family. It’s a fascinating yet confronting read.
Finally, my collaborator in the Institutionalized podcast, Dr. Jordan Schaul, also shares about a form of narcissism, called saviourism, prevalent in animal rights activism and in animal conservation efforts in his latest piece. You can draw parallels as well to other types of activism that feature the traits he describes here. His work challenges us to consider how we ‘do’ justice work that is ethical and takes a precautionary approach to prevent unintended harms, whether in the human or animal kingdom.
In our next episode, we interview the amazing Dr. Nadine Macaluso, who was once married to the infamous Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort about the investment banking industry and its dark triad traits held within its toxic culture. Subscribe so you can listen in as soon as the episode drops.
Thank you for listening, reading and supporting this work,
Nathalie Martinek, PhD
The Narcissism Hacker
An industry-specific look at toxic workplaces