真的嚇著了：社會工作者的恐懼經驗

We're Scared of... : Social Workers' Experiences of Fear

社會工作僅次於警察，是職場上遭遇暴力攻擊風險最高的職業。面對高危險的職場，過去的研究比較著重於社工的壓力負荷、專業耗竭或熱情枯竭，社工員的恐懼經驗則被忽視。然而身為專業人員，面對職場的恐懼似乎更難以啟齒，若是承認本身的恐懼，極有可能遭致不夠專業的批評。但是社工員的恐懼是一個存在的事實，似乎有必要進一步了解，並設法避免與降低社工員的恐懼。本文採用「自身民族誌」的方法，撰寫我們自己在從事社會工作實務中所遭遇的恐懼經驗，這些難以啟齒的經驗包括：與案主有關人士的身體語言之威脅、死亡的威脅、案主與社工自身人身安全的威脅與家訪的恐懼經驗等。經歷了這些恐懼，雖然對是否持續從事社會工作有過質疑，但也因為這些經歷讓我們更能瞭解案主的痛苦，更懂得珍惜自己。

After police officers, social workers run the highest risk of workplace violence directed at them. Previous studies have focused at stress of workload, burn-out and compassion fatigue of high risk work environment for social workers. The experiences of fear and the impact of fear on social workers are relatively neglected topics that deserve attention. As a professional, social worker is hardly to share her experiences of fear. It is perhaps understandable the social workers experience to fear of showing their ‘fear'. Autoethnography is applied to write up our experiences of fear in variety of social work settings. These comprised of fear of being threatened by body language, fear of being killed, fear of being assaulted and fear of uncertainty during the home visits. After experiencing these fears, we did question the meaning of social work. However, we are still fighting for the values of social work. We have become more sympathizing the sufferings of our clients, and more caring of ourselves.