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Ben Anderson-Nathe
Download by: [St. John's University Libraries] Date: 16 April 2017, At: 10:35
Chapter 2
Contextualizing Not-Knowing:
Terminology and the Role of
Professional Identity
fear (p. 112) within the workers themselves. This anxiety is difficult
to manage and can create significant barriers between adults and
youth in circumstances where workers are unable to effectively pro-
cess and contain their own reactions. In moments of not-knowing,
of course, such anxiety is exacerbated by workers recognition of
their own inability to respond.
Consequences of Not-Knowing
Discussions of not-knowing, vicarious trauma, pain-based fear
among residential youth workers, and other related concepts often
articulate a common consequence for failure to respond to these
stressful experiences: burnout. When workers cannot effectively pro-
cess, understand, share, and heal from the wounds they receive from
these experiences, they often feel ineffective as helpers, alienated from
18 NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO
and exhausted by their work, and frequently leave the field altogether
(Shields, 1996).
The literature surrounding helper burnout, with its emphasis on
the cumulative effects of uncertainty and unreflective practice, often
emphasizes either personal characteristics of workers who tend to
burn out and those who do not (McMullen & Krantz, 1988) or the
job stressors (Lee & Ashforth, 1996) that contribute to it. Much of
this work is based on the foundation laid by Maslach (1982), who
identified an inventory of three dimensions contributing to burnout:
emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal
accomplishment. All personal characteristics, these factors maintain
a focus on the individual rather than addressing the social, organiza-
tional, or cultural features that may also contribute to helping profes-
sionals inability to sustain themselves in the field. There is more
recent attention paid to social and environmental factors (Mattingly,
2006). This emerging literature holds some additional potential to
situate not-knowing and its long-term effects.
In his cross-cultural study of child and youth care workers, Savicki
(2002) broadened Maslachs work, exploring both the individual
(personal) and cultural (environmental) precursors to and indicators
of burnout. Savicki has suggested that burnout is the result of a series
of interactions between personal and environmental factors within
specific cultural contexts. A framework that offers much to an under-
standing of not-knowing and the stress or existential anxiety it may
cause for youth workers, the interplay between personal and environ-
mental influences, also sheds light on how some eventsmoments of
not-knowingmay give rise to levels of personal and professional
anxiety that foreshadow burnout for some workers, while the same
events may generate a significantly less stressful reaction from others
(or at other times).
While many discussions of burnout focus on the factors or
variables giving rise to workers inability to remain in the field, others
emphasize strategies useful in diminishing burnout among helping
professionals. In his discussion of managing compassion fatigue to
prevent burnout, for instance, Figley (2002) has suggested that help-
ers must routinely seek support in their work and in managing the
experienced trauma accompanying it from peers and other intimate
relationships. The recommendation for enhanced supervision and
peer support is indicative of a desire to minimize at least one of
Maslachs (1982) contributors to burnout, emotional exhaustion, by
Ben Anderson-Nathe 19
NOTE
1. It bears noting that the pressure to know what to do in every situation is likely not uni-
versal among youth workers. For instance, discussions with British or South African youth
workers might reveal a subtler understanding of the responsibility to respond, one with less
attention to the expectation of supercompetence. Nonetheless, despite the potential limitations
presented by its cultural context, the pressure to know (which I have called the myth of super-
competence) has resonated with many youth workers, including participants in this study and
others with whom I have shared sections of the dissertation.
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