Exploring the emotional labour of occupational therapists when interacting with clients.
Rebecca F Hings, Katarzyna Furmaniak, Carolyn Dunford and 2 others
Fourteen UK occupational therapists described managing what they show clients: holding back frustration, putting on enthusiasm, and rationalizing a client's abuse to seem sincere.
They said the rules are unwritten, context-dependent, and emotionally demanding.
Key findings
1OTs described unwritten, context-dependent norms about which emotions to show clients. They used the client's needs in the moment as their guide for what was appropriate, and saw 'professionalism' as a way to protect both themselves and the client in difficult situations.
2To appear sincere, OTs suppressed anger and frustration (surface acting) and deliberately shifted their feelings by rationalizing client behaviour, using mindfulness, or repeating verbal mantras (deep acting), particularly during abusive or physically intimate encounters.
3Participants disagreed on whether showing genuine emotion (crying, hugging, sharing sadness) was appropriate. Some felt it strengthened the therapeutic relationship; others saw it as unprofessional or a breach of boundaries.
Still to come
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Cross-sectional design with a single interview per participant, so it cannot show how emotional labour strategies change over time or within a single client interaction. The study did not examine how social identities (race, gender, sexuality, religion) or organizational structures shape emotional labour demands. No medium- or long-term effects on therapist wellbeing, burnout, or turnover were explored. The wide range of practice settings and experience levels (0 to 25+ years) may have diluted practice-setting-specific findings. Convenience sampling via the research team's own social and professional networks limits how far the findings extend beyond this group.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest declared. Funded by the Brunel Research Initiative and Enterprise Fund at Brunel University of London.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these themes as evidence that any particular emotional regulation strategy is effective or superior. This is a description of what 14 UK occupational therapists said they do, not a test of whether any approach improves client outcomes or therapist wellbeing. The sample was convenience-recruited from the research team's own networks, and each person was interviewed once, so the findings reflect these individuals' accounts rather than a generalizable pattern.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →