Handling relational stress and distance with the public: From the service to the helping relationship - 21/03/08
Abstract |
What kinds of tensions arise in jobs involving human contacts? And what forms of stress are associated with them? To answer these questions, the work performed by the activists who receive the public in a major French AIDS organization has been studied. Attention is focused not only on the difficulties that crop up in dealing with the public but also on activists' theories for explaining them and endowing them with meaning. These theories, which fit into established approaches to “relational stress” and burnout, do not lack contradictions. Referring to studies in the psychopathology of work and adopting an approach in terms of “distributed cognition” can shift discussion toward an original perspective that, without discrediting activists' explanations, sheds more light on handling relations and adjusting distance with the public.
Le texte complet de cet article est disponible en PDF.Keywords : AIDS, association, reception work, burnout, social service users, stress, service relationship, helping professions, France
Plan
✰ | This article was published originally in French and appeared Sociologie du Travail, 44 (Sociol. Trav.) 2002, 75-97. It has been translated by Noal Mellott. |
Vol 47 - N° S1
P. e17-e35 - janvier-mars 2005 Retour au numéroBienvenue sur EM-consulte, la référence des professionnels de santé.
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