| Graduate school can be a tough time for psychology graduate students, especially around the time of practicum due to demanding school and work hours. Practicum is described as field experience early in a student's career through which students gain training outside of the classroom, and applies acquired knowledge from the classroom into their clinical work (Baird, 2011). According to Clark, Murdock, and Koetting (2009), graduate students in a helping profession such as counseling may be vulnerable to burnout. Burnout is defined as "a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity". Higher levels of burnout can cause lower levels of work satisfaction, which can result in withdrawal from clients (Maslach, 1986). Attrition rate is the percentage of the rate at which something shrinks, reduces, or becomes lost over a period of time. According to Aubuchon-Endsley and Callahan (2009), there has been a 75% premature termination rate of clients in psychotherapy at a training clinic setting. The present study tested the hypothesis that burnout is correlated with attrition rates in clients; that is graduate students who experience higher burnout levels would have higher attrition rates. Thirty-six participants were included in the present study, the majority of which were Caucasian females between the ages of 26 to 28-years-old. The results revealed that there was no relationship between burnout and attrition rates in clients; however, the results did reveal that there was a relationship between Emotional Exhaustion and Perceived Stress, Depersonalization and Supervisory Working Alliance, and Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization. |
