Professional Burnout as a Factor in the Prosecutor’s Mental Health

Abstract

The article describes the psychological phenomenon of professional burnout, the mechanism of its formation, its features and content, which affects the efficiency of prosecutors’ activity and is an indicator of his mental health as an employee of the prosecutor’s office. It is established that in the process of professional activity, emotional losses are inevitable. Since deforming tendencies are potentially laid in all types of professional activity, the emergence of the emotional burnout syndrome is in direct connection with the development of professional deformations of the individual. Employees of the prosecutor’s office are not an exception. The lack of professional and psychological readiness for professional activities, and especially in tense difficult situations, negatively affects the performance of official tasks by the prosecutor. Changing personality characteristics of the prosecutor’s employee at the dawn of his professional career is one of the most important reasons for the rapid development of professional burnout, and in the future, and professional deformation, which significantly affects the mental health of the prosecutor. The author conducted a study and demonstrated that the professional burnout is affecting young professionals – trainees to the post of prosecutor with a work experience of up to one year. This is explained by the discrepancy between the thoughts on future work and the actual process of exercising professional powers, the large volume of new and difficult to understand information, the fear of personal responsibility for independent decision-making, the fulfillment of the tasks, in accordance with the necessity of the operative solution of the tasks set, etc. The prosecutor is a representative of the authorities, he stands in defense of human rights and freedoms, the general interests of society and the state, and its practical application. The author argued that one of the most urgent tasks of the reform process of the organs of the public prosecutor’s office of Ukraine is to provide activities for the preservation of mental health and the maintenance of the psychological well-being of the prosecutor.