Emotion In Healthcare Organization

Why is this an issue? This special issue of the journal addresses the issue of emotion in health-care organization. It reflects a more general and growing interest in the role of emotion across a range of academic disciplines (Evans and Cruse, 2004; Manstead et al., 2004). Argyris (1957) described the failure to take account of emotion by organizations as alexithymiac, a disease defined by psychiatry as being one of emotional blankness or flatness. This utilisation of a metaphor from healthcare is symptomatic of the dichotomy represented in this special edition as it demonstrates that emotion is both part of the content as well as the process of health care. Yet the application of what is known, as part of this content in treating patients, has rarely been applied to the business of organizing health care (Mark, 2000). Meanwhile, what has emerged is a growing interest in the role of emotion from other disciplines, for example from sociology through the work of Hochschild (1983) on emotional labour and from psychology through the work of Frijda (1988) in defining the laws of emotion. Others are also attempting to determine something about emotions which both defines them (Ekman and Davidson, 1994; Evans 2001) and can be utilised in the business of organizing (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) and using them intelligently (Goleman, 1996). A literature on the effect of emotion in organizational life has also emerged as part of this discussion(Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995; Ashkanasy and Daus, 2002; Fineman, 1993; Obholzer and Roberts, 1994). This literature is concerned with the process issues within organizations rather than just that which happens between individuals; it also takes account of the wider context that affects individuals and their organizations. It appears timely therefore to explore interest in the role of emotion in the organization of healthcare. This interest is also generated by the juxtaposition of emotion with scientific rationality (Evans and Cruse, 2004) in the provision of health care, and the consequences that this has for both individuals and the organization. The articles selected for inclusion in this special edition therefore trace both the interpersonal nature of emotion, as well as how it can also span the individual and the organizational setting. In addition, there are articles which look at the bridges into both the shadowy areas of organizational life like gossip, as well as the interface between personal and professional lives. Commentaries The first two papers are commentaries on specific aspects of interest by two experts in the field. Dorothy Rowe, the renowned psychologist, and herself for many years a clinical psychologist in the UK NHS, explores the meaning of emotion in a way that considers it as a developmental process through which we gain recognition and insight into ourselves and others. This perspective on emotion as a form of identity construction is important in many fields, be it organizations (Ashforth