Shaw2013

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Shaw2013
BibType ARTICLE
Key Shaw2013
Author(s) Rebecca Shaw, Celia Kitzinger
Title Managing distress, effecting empowerment: a conversation analytic case study of a call to the home birth helpline
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Medical EMCA, compliments, Conversation Analysis, empowerment, helplines, support work
Publisher
Year 2013
Language
City
Month
Journal International Review of Social Research
Volume 3
Number 2
Pages 7–28
URL Link
DOI 10.1515/irsr-2013-0008
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

One of the most pressing concerns for many helpline staff is how to manage overt forms of distress and anxiety manifest in ‘troubles talk’, while also encouraging (or ‘empowering’) callers to take action to change the conditions that are creating the distress. Based on an audio-recording of a single call to a Home Birth helpline (drawn from a corpus of 80 such calls), we use conversation analysis to explore how the call-taker negotiates the tension between managing the caller’s distress about her scheduled hospital labour (the ‘presenting problem’), while also encouraging her to arrange a home birth (the ‘problem solution’). We focus on the work the call-taker does to position herself as troubles-talk recipient, while also ensuring that by the end of the encounter the caller has received the information and advice she needs to take action to organise her home birth.

Notes