Emotional labour in therapeutic work - the case of physiotherapists and psychotherapists in Poland.

This article presents a comparative analysis of emotional labour among physiotherapists and psychotherapists in Poland, based on 26 in-depth interviews conducted separately with practitioners working primarily in private practice. Despite differences in therapeutic modality - physiotherapists intervening through the body, psychotherapists through the psyche - the analysis reveals structural convergences in their emotional experiences. Drawing on Hochschild's concept of emotional labour and Bolton's typology of emotion management, the article examines how practitioners employ both surface and deep acting. The article's key contributions are threefold. First, it offers an innovative comparative approach, providing empirical evidence of professional similarities across therapeutic modalities (and some differences). Second, it reconceptualises therapy sociologically as a normative and relational setting. Third, it clarifies the boundaries between emotional labour and self-care.