On the Other Hand… The Paradoxical Nature of Employee Assistance Programs

ABSTRACT

This paper uses a dialectical perspective to identify and explore three paradoxes embedded in the very nature of EAPs, which cause occupational stress for EAP professionals. The first paradox, “employer or employee assistance?”, relates to the conflicting demands EAP professionals often receive from their two constituencies. The second paradox, “nature of problem vs. nature of intervention,” refers to the pressures for EAP professionals to provide short-term individual solutions to long-term structural problems. The third paradox, “helpers who need help,” points out that the same characteristics which attract people to work in an EAP, or which strengthen the need for an EAP in a given organization, may at the same time threaten the effectiveness of EAP professionals.