Vilardaga, R., Luoma, J. B., Hayes, S. C., Pistorello, J., Levin, M. E., Hildebrandt, M. J., ... & Bond, F. (2011). Burnout among the addiction counseling workforce: The differential roles of mindfulness and values-based processes and work-site factors. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 40(4), 323-335.
Although work-site factors have been shown to be a consistent predictor of burnout, the importance of mindfulness and values-based processes among addiction counselors has been little examined. In this study, we explored how strongly experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, and values commitment related to burnout after controlling for well-established work-site factors (job control, coworker support, supervisor support, salary, workload, and tenure). We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 699 addiction counselors working for urban substance abuse treatment providers in six states of the United States. Results corroborated the importance of work-site factors for burnout reduction in this specific population, but we found that mindfulness and values-based processes had a stronger and more consistent relationship with burnout as compared with work-site factors. We conclude that interventions that target experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, and values commitment may provide a possible new direction for the reduction of burnout among addiction counselors.