Becoming an emotional worker and student: exploring skin and spa therapy education and training

This study connects to the term ‘emotional labour’, coined by [Hochschild, A. R. (1983) 2003. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University California Press], and explores how skin spa therapy students are constructed as emotional workers in learning processes surrounding body. Drawing on a poststructural approach, inspired Foucault, regularities description self-description were analysed material, which consist interviews field notes derived from observations classroom interaction. results show student subjectivities produced response presumption about body availability educational arrangements. It also shows positioned position themselves through three reoccurring issues body; private sphere, place pain, disgusting peculiarities Here, struggling emerge, striving overcome obstacles that might entail becoming professional. participants self-position responsible concerning each other’s’ processes, making their bodies available for classmates practice on, communicating thoughts feelings posing clients, developing empathic abilities towards future clients. Thus, not only workers, but students, pinpointing necessity research labour.