"It’s incredible how much emotional labour social care workers take on but rarely discuss...not having the time and space to perform our emotional labour can be disastrous".
The in2gr8mentalhealth forum is open to social workers with lived experience of mental ill health.
The sooner that reflective space is recognised as essential to processing emotional labour, and offered to all working in the Careforce as a matter of course, the sooner our workforce will experience increased psychological safety processing this work.
The worker's 'self' is the instrument of effective engagement, it is the container of vulnerability and distress and provider of compassion through all odds in care work - this is 'emotional labor'. Sustaining wellbeing at work can't be laid at the feet of the individual to just 'self' care. In this context, caring for the worker's 'self' becomes a shared responsibility between employer who requires the use of these human tools for emotional labor, and the carer who will want to maintain capacity to do their job.
When there is equilibrium of care between organisation, worker and client, the triad can flourish.
Dr Natalie Kemp CPsychol
The full article can be found here