(2016) Science and education, 7, 58-64. Odessa.

Aliona Pohribna,
post-graduate student,
Department of Psychology,
Donbass State Pedagogical University,
19, Р. Batiuk Str., Sloviansk, Ukraine

COPING RESOURCES OF SPECIAL SCHOOLS TEACHERS AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM

The article deals with the problem of coping resources as a systematic, integrating personality characteristic, which makes it possible to overcome difficult life situations; is actualized and manifested in personality’s self-determination processes. Considering stress- and affect-producing nature of teaching, especially at special schools (for children with cognitive development disorders), the formation of the main (basic) coping resources in this category of teachers can serve as the basis for the development of highly functional protective coping behavior, which, in turn, will contribute to the implementation of prevention and overcoming burnout in the professional environment. The article is aimed at studying the quantitative and qualitative structure of the coping resources of special schools teachers and the analysis of their interactions with the parameters of emotional burnout. Based on the conceptual provisions of the resource approach to cope with stress, a pilot study was conducted with the help of standardized psychodiagnostic methods: «Loss and acquisition of personal resources», «Diagnosis of emotional burnout», as well as multivariate Freiburg’s personality questionnaire. The deficit of the most important coping resources in this category of teachers has been found as a result of the research (ability to cope with stress, assertiveness, optimism, sociability, etc.), as well as the imbalance between «loss» and «acquisition» of personal resources, which caused the symptoms of emotional burnout. It has been experimentally proved that teachers with the symptoms of burnout are characterized by low capacity for accumulation («conservation») of personal and environmental resources before facing a stressful situation, the disability to use and update them. The obtained results have made it possible to identify the further ways of preventing and overcoming the emotional burnout in this category of teachers by forming their adaptive coping resources.

coping resources, coping, emotional burnout, stress, professional activity.

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