Author: Katharine Murphy

By Dr Daniele Carrieri, Lecturer in Public Health, University of Exeter, and Project Partner for Reading Bodies

In preparation for our creative workshop on burnout and resilience, Dr Daniele Carrieri explores research perspectives on related workplace issues. For more information about this research theme, please visit our Resources page.

Introduction

I have come across, but never investigated, the term ‘quiet quitting’. This creative writing workshop on burnout, overload and resilience offers an excellent opportunity to start filling this gap in my research on mental ill-health and wellbeing in a high-stress work context: healthcare.[1]  Quiet quitting is newer and possibly less known than ‘burnout’, ‘stress’ or’ resilience’. It also has some evocative potential – which I hope will inspire creating thinking and writing. I believe there is a poetic flare in ‘quiet quitting’  (perhaps also due to its alliteration?), as well as echoes of cultural references such as Thoreau’s ‘quiet desperation’ (Thoreau, ed. 2006), or, more recently, the introversion highlighted by Cain in her book ‘Quiet’ (Cain, 2013).