Exhaustion Mechanism and Sustainable Paths of College Cou nselors’ Heart-to-Heart Talks from the Perspective of Emoti onal Labor

Abstract

Heart-to-heart talk is an important approach for university counselors to carry out ideological and political education, which is essentially an educational practice highly dependent on emotional interaction. Based on the perspective of emotional labor theory, this study focuses on the heart-to-heart talk work of university counselors, deeply analyzes the practical characteristics of emotional labor and the generation mechanism of emotional exhaustion, and explores sustainable development paths. The findings indicate that university counselors mainly present three types of emotional labor in heart-to-heart talks: empathetic emotional output, role-based emotional management, and sustained emotional engagement. Emotional exhaustion is formed through the superposition of multiple mechanisms, including excessive consumption of emotional resources, accumulation of emotional dissonance, multiple role conflicts, and insufficient organizational support. To address the dilemma of emotional exhaustion, equal emphasis should be placed on individual growth and organizational empowerment, constructing a sustainable development model for counselors' emotional labor from four dimensions: strengthening professional empathy competence, improving emotional adjustment mechanisms, optimizing work boundaries, and improving the organizational support system, thereby enhancing the educational effectiveness of heart-to-heart talks.