Dilemmas and Conflicts of Various Professional Roles within a Human Service Agency

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the workplace experience of three groups of professionals at the Chilean National Service for Minors (Servicio Nacional de Menores, SENAME) through the study of the tensions and dilemmas they face in carrying out their roles. This public institution is tasked with protecting and caring for the most vulnerable children and adolescents throughout Chile. By systematically studying the subjective experience of its workers, this article opens perspectives to understand organizational dynamics operating beneath the institutional surface. Among these dynamics, there are identified the isolation and atomization of workplace relationships, the idealization of own role, the lack of emotional and professional support, and persecutory anxieties. In this context, the article describes the main “collective social defenses” that professionals employ to face high levels of anxiety and conflict that the work done in this institution stirs up.