Känslohantering och professionalitet i socialt arbete  – att hålla känslorna i schack : - en kvalitativ studie om socialarbetares känslomässiga upplevelser i arbetet med personer med substansbruksproblem och psykisk ohälsa

Sammanfattning: Emotions constitutes a large part of social work and social workers use their expertise to handle emotions of others while coping with their own. The aim of this qualitative study is to investigate the emotions that social workers experience, and how they manage their own emotions working with clients with both problematic substance use and mental illness. The study is based on eight semi-structed interviews with social workers, working closely with this specific client-group. We have analyzed our data according to Hochschild’s theory of “emotional labor”, by using a thematic analysis.   The results shows that the work involves a wide range of emotions, where frustration, helplessness, joy and curiosity are the most common emotions. Being able to manage emotions and the way in which one does so appears to be strongly linked to professionalism. It appears that social workers should not show too much of their emotions, but not too little either. The results also show that the emotion management takes place in two different arenas, in the client meeting and in the workplace, and the emotion rules differ markedly depending on the arena. Managing emotions together with colleagues and through supervision also proved to be important for maintaining professionalism.