Emotions

Medicine has traditionally treated emotions as irrelevant, or worse, as threats to objective reasoning. In contrast, nursing values emotion as central to what it means to deliver compassionate care Olson and Dadich 2019. Based on social perspectives, emotions are considered relevant to all aspects of social life, including reasoning, the provision of care, explaining differences in health, and even one's position in the social hierarchy within medical workplaces (de Courville Nicol 2021; Turner and Stets 2005 (see the chapter, 'Professions and professional identity'). In this chapter, you will explore intersections across emotions, (mental) health and healthcare. You will learn the differing ways in which emotions have been defined and understood over time, across cultures and disciplinary lines, with an emphasis on sociological theories of emotion. You will learn how emotions interact with other social forces, working to reinforce hierarchies within and across health professions, such as medicine and nursing. By the end of the chapter, you should appreciate perspectives that focus on the potential for emotions to both organise people and affect change, both within and beyond healthcare. We start by examining different conceptualisations of emotions from history, psychology and sociology. Here, we uncover the legacy of historical perspectives that treat emotions with suspicion. We also question current taken-for-granted ways of thinking about emotions and critique theories that treat emotions as occurring solely on the inside, within individuals. We introduce a few widely used theories on emotions from sociology, where emotions are treated as internal and social. Second, we explore the growing body of scholarship linking emotions and health. We examine the different ways researchers and practitioners respond to this evidence, ranging from meditation to social change. Although these diverging responses largely depend on differences in how emotions are defined, the effects are important. Some argue that emotional health and resilience training can exacerbate inequalities in health, causing us to see emotional health as an individual rather than a social issue and to blame those who are most socially and economically disadvantaged for their poor health and lack of resilience. Third, we apply social theories to understand emotions in health and healthcare. Such theories help us to recognise emotions as important to patients' experiences, and to acknowledge that patients' emotions are also relevant to others, including partners, children and clinicians. Social theories are also useful to understanding divisions of labour and persisting inequalities within healthcare, especially those following gendered lines. More specifically, we suggest that emotions are central to how the hierarchy in healthcare is felt and maintained.