The UX of a Burnout - or why we have to talk about mental health

Thorsten Jonas

03 Feb, 6:25 pm

04 Feb, 2:25 am

04 Feb, 10:25 am

15 min

„As long as you are still creative you are not affected by a Burnout.“ Unfortunately, this is not true. We need to talk about Burnout and Creativity. How to realize, how to avoid and how to help. Thorsten want to discuss this by taking you on his personal journey through a Burn-Out.

Description

Burn-out. Depression. You name it. Everybody heart about it. Many more people than we think ran into it or are facing it right now. But still, we are not talking enough about it. It’s always „the others“, who are affected.

Burn-out as a „creative person“ does not necessarily mean, you are not creative anymore. Rather this is a dangerous mis-judgement: „As long as you are still creative, as long as workshops are successful and your team is happy, you are not affected.“ This is how I thought for too long.

But, when we already got into the burn-out spiral, when the depression gains control, or when anxiousness takes over, our creative mind- and toolset can be really helpful. We can use it to support our healing significantly as well as supporting other people from our teams.

Along my personal journey through a burn-out, I want to share my personal experience, what Creativity had to do with it and the changes I made to my (work-)life as a Creative Person and Leader as well as how we can help others as Leaders and Colleagues.

And at last: why the Burn-Out was the best thing that could happen to me and why we all have to talk much more about this topic.

Meet the speaker

Thorsten Jonas

Strategic UX Consultant & Coach

For 15 years Thorsten (@dolbydigger) is in the field of UX, supporting clients to create meaningful products, platforms and experiences. During his career he worked with clients like Red Bull, Intel, the NZZ, European Telecommunications companies like Sunrise (Switzerland), A1 (Austria) or PŸUR (Germany) and various Broadcasters like ZDF, ARD, ProSiebenSat1 or the Tagesschau.

Besides he speaks at conferences and is mentoring young UX professionals.

Thorsten believes, that we have the responsibility to make tech accessible to everyone and create a world where tech helps humans to live a delightful & meaningful life. We have to move from human centered design to a humanity and environmental centered design approach.