I clean dirt but I am not dirty! How emotion caregivers “make sense” in emotional dirty work
研究情感照料者如何通过认知、情感和集体层面的意义建构，化解清理他人情感污垢时的矛盾心理，建立积极的职业认同。
In emotional dirty work, little is known about how emotion caregivers construe meaning out of burdensome emotional demands mandated by their occupation. This study examines how “emotion caregivers” experience ambivalence while cleaning their beneficiaries’ emotional dirt and yet make sense out of it to build positive occupational identity. It demonstrates that “emotion caregivers” perform intense emotional labor on their day-to-day work by embracing rather than discarding unwelcome emotions of the care seekers. Undertaking a qualitative inquiry through self-narratives of 21 counselors, we report their ambivalence toward the work and how such ambivalence is managed through “cognitive,” “emotional,” and “collective” levels of sensemaking. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed to highlight how psychological and sociological perspectives of sensemaking help “emotion caregivers” diffuse ambivalence.