The author examines the relationship between emotions and professional actions in this ethnographically designed study, focusing on the various dimensions of emotional labor by professionals in the field of residential child care. He deciphers, on an empirical level, the practices and subjective meanings of the professionals involved, and on a theoretical level, the functions of professional emotional labor. In addition to working on one's own and others' emotions, the analytical work also addresses the discursive forms of emotional labor and the normalization of feelings.