Emotional Navigation in Social Services - on Emotional Labor among Swedish Social Workers

Abstract

This thesis explores emotional labor among social workers in Swedish Social Services. The primary aim is to enhance understanding of how social workers discuss and utilize emotions in their practice, as well as how they manage their own and others' emotions. Additionally, the thesis aims to shed light on how social workers identify and navigate feeling rules and role expectations within their professional practice. The study is based on empirical material gathered from social workers employed in the individual and family care sector, including interviews, observations of professional meetings, supervision sessions, and informal interactions. Informed by institutional ethnography, the analysis also incorporates various texts and documents. The theoretical framework of the study draws from the sociology of emotions, which views emotions not merely as individual experiences but as social phenomena that both shape and are shaped by interactions. This perspective highlights how feeling rules and norms at different levels govern the experience, display, and management of emotions. The analysis reveals that social work practice is embedded within often-contradictory sets of feeling rules, reflecting larger inherent conflicts and tensions regarding the mission, role, and direction of social work. These ambiguities manifest as conflicts and disagreements in organizational meetings, where professional ethics and bureaucratic standards—conceptualized as dual emotive-cognitive frames of reference—collide in terms of ideas about case interpretation and how to relate to emotions in practice. Additionally, these ambiguities lead to feelings of ambivalence, uncertainty, frustration, self-doubt, and guilt among social workers, as there is no clear standard for evaluating their practice and behavior, making it difficult to delineate boundaries for what can and should be done. Furthermore, the analysis shows that social workers engage in ongoing emotional navigation within the complex emotional regime of social services. This process involves claiming and moving between role positions defined by the dual frames. Role positions are based on beliefs about one's role responsibilities, the scope of one's duties, the degree of closeness to clients, and the boundaries between private and professional spheres. Claiming these role positions allows social workers to maintain coherence in their core values and sense of self. Emotional navigation and the sense of professional identity are greatly influenced by repeated interaction rituals with colleagues, which produce group solidarity and emotionally charged collective symbols, such as moral standards. Finally, the analysis demonstrates that emotions are a fundamental part of social work practice, strategically used to influence others, motivate and guide actions, inform decision-making, and underpin moral reflection. However, the organization, through implicit norms and explicit instructions regarding how, when, and where emotions should be displayed, managed, and used, aims to shape social workers' emotions into organizational resources.