Emotions and Health - Assignment Example

Emotions and Health Question The organizations presented in the study of Stack and Provis share common characteristics. However, they also presentsome significant differences mostly regarding the types of caring work and emotional labour provided. As a general assumption, Stock and Travis mention that the three organizations are differentiated in their type of caring work provided. More specifically the above researchers notice that “in Organisations One and Two, the caring work studied was largely ‘professional care’, performed mainly by trained, qualified nurses; in Organisation Three, it was ‘home care work’ embracing various domestic tasks but also frequently involving intimate personal services ranging from assistance with daily living tasks such as showering and washing to more complex procedures such as changing colostomy bags or catheterisation” (Stack and Provis, p. 3). However, in order to generate more accurate assumptions regarding the main characteristics of the three organizations as of the work provided and the structure of the labour relations it should be useful to present their general operational framework as well as the role of the employees at least as these two issues have been developed in the relevant research. More specifically, Organization One is a non profit nursing organization which “operates across the metropolitan area, providing home and community nursing and allied health care” (Stack and Provis, p. 4). In this organization the role of nurses refers mostly to the “health promotion and preventative care”. Moreover, the nurses are involved in “patients’ social and psychological needs as well as their immediate physical surrounds (dietary needs of patients, checking the fridge to ensure it contains staples and throwing out old, mouldy food); they may also have made telephone calls to sort out issues for patients, collect medication from the pharmacy or drop something in the post for them”. In other words, in Organization One the care work provided is as complete as possible trying to resolve any issues related with the patients’ increased need for care in accordance with the medication provided. On the other hand, the involvement of nurses in the patients’ personal issues (always in relation with their needs resulted from their situation) leads to their emotional participation in the cases undertaken which can be extremely helpful for the success of the treatment provided to the patients. As for the new management system which is going to be applied, this will hardly differentiate the existing strategy. It will just include provisions for the handling of specific needs of patients by non-medical staff. As for Organization Two, this is a “well-established private hospital delivering a broad range of clinical and nursing services to patients within seven units defined according to types of condition and treatment (coronary, orthopaedic, maternity, and so on) (Stack and Provis, p. 5). The caring work provided by this organization focuses mainly on the “delivery of clinical care, with increasing pressures on staff to function efficiently and economically with respect to time and material resources” (Stack and Provis, p. 5). In order for this work to be completed successfully the staff is required to behave in a particular manner following the guidelines provided by the administration. In this context, the employee relations are quite formal while everyone in medical staff has to behave to his/ her colleagues as in ‘his clients’. Although this behaviour can be considered as too typical, it may can be considered as positive for the patients since there will be no time lost to the development of ‘socializing’ within the relevant organization. On the other hand, Organization Three is a private home care agency which focuses on the “arrangement of a variety of increasingly complex services, either short or long term, for an expanding and diverse range of people requiring assistance to manage their health and personal care needs in their own homes” (Stack and Provis, p. 6). The particular institution is differentiated by the two presented above as it is directed to the provision of advanced support to its customers. However, it should be mentioned that because of its type (private home care agency) this institution is more likely to focus on the particular object and not to the provision of advanced nursing services, as in the case of the two previous organizations. For this reason Organization Three can deal with the satisfaction of the individualised responses. Moreover, it is noticed by Stack and Provis (p.6) that in specific organization “while the work allocated to carers takes place within a defined block of time, within that time frame the tasks are altered and negotiated to fit around the individual, paralleling domestic or family care work”. In other words, staff in Organization Three has the flexibility to alternate the daily program in order to meet the demands of the particular customers, a target that cannot be achieved by the first two Organizations because of their volume of work and their operational frameworks. Question 2 Caroline Hastie examines the issue of horizontal violence in the nursing workplace and analyzes all the particular elements related with this phenomenon. Her article begins with the definition of horizontal violence given by Duffy (1995). In accordance with the relevant definition “Horizontal violence is hostile and aggressive behaviour by individual or group members towards another member or groups of members of the larger group; this has been described as inter-group conflict” (Hastie, 2002). The particular characteristics of Horizontal Violence as presented by Hastie are the following: a) Horizontal Violence can be “manifested in overt and covert behaviours of hostility”, b) it can “occur in any arena where there are unequal power relations, and one groups self expression and autonomy is controlled by forces with greater prestige, power and status than themselves” and c) it could be characterized as a “psychologically, emotionally and spiritually damaging behaviour and can have devastating long term effects on the recipients” (Hastie, 2002). Generally, Horizontal Violence is considered as expressing “the internal conflict, generated by conforming to structural pressures and, in some, subduing the desire for autonomy, whilst over inflating it in other groups, compounds the self-hatred and low self esteem of certain groups of people and perpetuates the cycle of horizontal violence”. In the above context, any action that would possibly resulted from the desire for additional power or for the use of the existed power in the workplace can lead to Horizontal Violence within a particular organization. In accordance with the above Horizontal violence can include all types of ‘hidden opposition’ within a workplace caused because of the existence of specific interests by a particular team or just a person. To a general presentation of the issue it could be stated that Horizontal Violence can include a series of actions, especially “all acts of unkindness, discourtesy, sabotage, divisiveness, infighting, lack of cohesiveness, scapegoating and criticism” (Hastie, 2002). In fact, as presented above Horizontal Violence can refer even to the hostility existed among employees in a particular workplace. This hostility can be expressed through a series of acts which can be made known to their recipient or not. The term ‘Horizontal’ in this case can be considered as refer mostly to the relations of employees belonging to the same ‘organizational level’. This assumption has been made because of the existence of the particular choice, e.g. the word ‘vertical’ could be used otherwise. In case that I would have to face a similar situation I would choose to proceed my work without responding to the challenges set by the opposite side. Either if having understood the above situation or not, I would try to continue working as not having noticed any relevant attempt. Moreover, I would attempt to identify the reasons that caused such behaviour and try to alternate any possible element of my behaviour that may have caused this situation. However, if there was no specific reason for such an action, I would simply ignore any event related trying to concentrate on the completion of my work. In other words, I would try to apply the principle stated by Goffman (1959) that we should work on ourselves “in order to have the correct feeling for the work situation or the social situation”. References Goffman, E. (1959) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Hastie, C. (2002) Horizontal Violence in the Workplace, available at http://www.acegraphics.com.au/articles/hastie02.html Stack, S., Provis, C. Tensions in Flexible Employment Arrangements for Caring Labour, available at http://business.unisa.edu.au/grewc/publications/stack.pdf Read More