Facilitating Positive Emotional Labor in Peer-Providers of Mental Health Services

Emotional labor is the work of regulating feelings in the context of employment. Providers of consumer-based mental health services help others through their use of autobiographical experiences. These providers thus routinely perform emotional labor as they negotiate their working relationships with other service users, consumer-provider colleagues, and non-consumer coworkers. Absent organizational supports, these providers can experience emotional exhaustion leading to burnout and high turnover. Data provided from a qualitative study of consumer-providers' emotional labor indicates the salience of this construct and implicates the need for organizational cultures with relevant emotional labor supports.