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 Key Issues Number 30

STRATEGIES FOR EMPLOYEE

ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS:

THE CRUCIAL BALANCE

Second Edition, Revised

William J. Sonnenstuhl

Harrison M. Trice

ILR Press
School of Industrial and Labor Relations
Cornell University
Copyright © 1986,1990 by Cornell University
ISSN: 0070-0185
ISBN: 0-87546-167-0
Second printing, 1995

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sonnenstuhl, William J., 1946-

Strategies for employee assistance programs: the crucial balance
/ William J. Sonnenstuhl, Harrison M. Trice. -2nd ed., rev.
p. cm. — (Key issues ; no. 30)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Employee assistance programs. 2. Alcoholism and employment.
I. Trice, Harrison Miller, 1920- . H. Tide. m. Series: Key
issues (Ithaca, N.Y.) ; no. 30.
HF5549.5.E42S6 1990
658.3'82 -dc20 90-4469
CIP
 CONTENTS

PREFACE v

I. EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE: AN OVERVIEW 1

Employee Assistance Terms Defined 1

Historical Antecedents of EAPs 3
Social Betterment 3
Personnel Counseling 3
Occupational Mental Health 4
Industrial Alcoholism 5
Employee Assistance Programs 6
Why EAPs Are Adopted 7
Union Reactions to Employee Assistance 8
Member Assistance 9
Summary 10

II. EAP PROGRAM COMPONENTS AND IMPLEMENTATION 11

Program Policy 11
EAP Sensitivity to Alcoholism 13
The Core Technology of EAPs 14
Top-Management Support 15
Program Management and Coordination 16
Supervisory Training 18
Peer Training 19
Employee Education 20
The Counseling Component 21
In-House Services 22
External Services 23
Community Resource Network 23
Union Support and Involvement 24
Summary 26

III. ISSUES IN PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT 27

Program Strategies and Their Effectiveness 27

Constructive Confrontation 28
Counseling 31
The Case for Balance 33
Corporate and Union Responsibilities 36
Provision of Services 36
 Confidentiality 37
Third-Party Payment 38
Summary 40

IV. WORKERS' COMPENSATION, ARBITRATION, AND EAPs 41

Workers' Compensation Insurance 41

Physical-Mental Injuries 42
Mental-Physical Injuries 42
Mental-Mental Injuries 43
The Tort of Mental Distress 44
Alcohol and Workers' Compensation 45
Arbitration 46
Psychiatric Problems 47
Alcohol Problems 48
Drug Problems 51
EAPs and Employer Responsibility 53

V. PROGRAM EVALUATION AND THE FUTURE OF EAPS 55

Program Evaluation 55
Some Neglected Aspects of Program Evaluation 60
Future Studies 62
Integrating Research into Practice 63
The Crucial Balance: A Summary 63
EAP Strategies: Constructive Confrontation and Counseling 64
Program Adoption 64
Labor-Management Cooperation 64

Appendix A: Constructive Confrontation and Its Effectiveness 65

Appendix B: Counseling and Its Effectiveness 66

References 69
 PREFACE
In the first edition, we attempted to make sense of the conflicting notions of
"employee assistance11 by reviewing the historical origins of employee assistance
programs (EAPs) and by building on the empirical research about program
effectiveness. We concluded that effective programs maintain a crucial balance
between constructive confrontations—the workplace strategy for identifying and
motivating alcoholic and other troubled employees to change their behavior—and
the dynamics of counseling because these strategies act synergetically. Today,
there is an emerging consensus that maintaining this crucial balance is at the core of
EAP work (Blum, Roman, and Tootle, 1988; Roman, 1988).
According to Roman and Blum (1985, 1988b) the core tasks involved in
maintaining this balance are:
1. consulting with and training supervisors, managers, stewards, and coworkers
on the use of: job performance to identify employees' behavioral problems and
constructive confrontation to motivate them to resolve their behavioral problems;
2. linking alcoholic and other troubled employees to community resources for
counseling and treatment;
3. creating and maintaining links between the work organization and community
resources; and
4. maintaining a program emphasis on alcohol and other substance abuse
problems.
Consensus is slowly emerging among employee assistance workers as they
attempt to become more professional and cut out a protected labor market for
themselves (Blum, 1988). Currently, they are organized into two occupational
associations: the Employee Assistance Professional Association (EAPA) and the
Employee Assistance Society of North America (EASNA). Originally founded in
1971, EAPA was known as the Association of Labor-Management Administrators
and Consultants on Alcoholism (ALMACA). The association changed its name in
1989 to highlight members' identity as employee assistance rather than alcoholism
workers and to reflect their belief that they are entitled to professional status.
EASNA was formed by discontented ALMACA members who felt that it was
moving too slowly toward development of professional standards.
Generally, EAPA and EASNA agree that the core tasks listed above are the
basis of employee assistance work; however, they disagree about what
qualifications someone should possess to do such work and what qualities a
program should possess to be accredited as an employee assistance program.
EAPA has developed its certification process for workers around a single standard
that assesses knowledge of the core tasks (ALMACAN, 1989). EASNA sees this
standard as too narrow and argues for developing separate standards for each of
the roles played by workers: marketing, administration, and counseling.
Currently, EASNA is proposing standards for program accreditation that do not
mention EAPA certification but do describe different standards for workers who
perform different EAP roles and require all staff to have "EASNA-approved
training" (EASNA, 1989a, 1989b). EAPA, on the other hand, rejects program
accreditation by an outside agency and is developing a set of guidelines with which
it expects EAPs to comply voluntarily.

v
 Workers cannot simply appropriate professional status for themselves by
enacting the ritual symbols of professionalism; rather, society must also recognize
their exclusive right to perform the tasks they claim as their own. By this standard,
employee assistance workers have fared poorly. As yet, no college offers an EAP
curriculum based exclusively on the core tasks which leads to a professional degree;
rather, a small number of schools offer either a limited undergraduate curriculum
(e.g., Trice, 1990; Quick, Sonnenstuhl, and Trice, 1987) or incorporate an
EAP-specific course or two into such human service-oriented graduate programs as
social work, alcohol counseling, and psychology (NIDA, 1988). Without a
graduate curriculum to call its own, society will not recognize EAP work as a
profession.
Likewise, no state is considering licensing employee assistance workers—the
ultimate symbol of professionalism. Some states have written voluntary guidelines
reflective of the core tasks but they have not generally restricted the use of the term
employee assistance to either personnel or programs that comply with those
standards (e.g., NYSDAAA, 1990). For instance, California's Knox-Keene
legislation, which was inspired by insurance industry complaints that EAPs are a
form of prepaid health insurance and ought to be regulated like psychological
health maintenance organizations, does not restrict the use of the term employee
assistance to those programs that simply perform the core tasks: identification and
referral (Cagney, 1989). Rather, it merely exempts the small EAP that does not
provide psychological treatment from being licensed by the Department of
Corporations like psychological health maintenance organizations, while allowing
any organization to call itself an EAP. As one small independent employee
assistance worker aptly explains, "My motivation was to protect my. . . business
rather than protect any 'proprietary* claim on the 'concept of EAP'" (Collins,
1988:20).
Conflict between professsionals and organizational managers occurs because
professionals, claiming autonomy, reject administrative demands that they perform
tasks outside of their claimed area of expertise. In contrast, employee assistance
workers appear unable to confine their work to the core tasks and appear
particularly willing to take on new assignments. For instance, managers have been
able to make employee assistance workers comply with their requests to bypass
constructive confrontation in favor of rushing employees into treatment (Trice and
Beyer, 1984a). Likewise, in recent years, as pressures have increased for
companies to cut health care costs and implement drug testing, EAPs seemingly
have taken on these new chores with little resistance. Indeed, many EAP workers
have seen these challenges as opportunities for increasing their domains.
Finally, if employee assistance work is ever to achieve professional status,
EAPA must do more than adopt the ceremonial trappings of a code of ethics
(ALMACAN, 1988a, 1988b); it must also enforce them. Paul M. Roman
(1990:10) puts the matter succinctly:
Rumors abound regarding ethical issues. . . .Despite the
juiciness of these stories, no one seems to want to take the next
steps of determining facts which can be weighed by a respected
tribunal, followed by disciplinary sanctions if appropriate If
the field allows unethical behavior to fester and grow, these

vi
 diffuse to those whose respect is essential. . . .Active
recognition that ethics are taken seriously is the means by
which constituencies have "faith" in the behavior of those in the
established professions.

Despite any emerging consensus about the core tasks, then, it is impossible to
assert that employee assistance work is a profession or will ever become one.
Indeed, employee assistance may remain what it has been all along—a loosely
connected group of people who believe in helping their fellow workers and have
discovered in the crucial balance a simple, inexpensive, and effective means of
doing so. Consequently, throughout this edition, we once again focus on the
crucial balance between the workplace and treatment place, emphasizing the
important roles that managers, supervisors, stewards, and coworkers play in
identifying and motivating alcoholic and other troubled employees to change their
behavior. Today, this seems particularly important because, despite verbal
agreement with the core tasks, too many employee assistance workers appear to
have lost sight of the critical and beneficial functions their actions play in
rehabilitation, emphasizing instead the role of counselors in treatment. This
discussion is designed not only for executives and labor leaders but also for EAP
coordinators and directors as well as for managers, supervisors, counselors, and
others involved with EAPs.
Chapter 1 discusses the historical development of employee assistance
programs within the larger context of management and labor efforts to assist
alcoholic and other troubled employees. Chapter 2 describes the key components
of EAPs—the most important of which are (a) a written policy and (b) a program
coordinator whose primary function is to see that procedures and policies are
implemented throughout the workplace and that employees in need of counseling
services receive them. Chapter 3 focuses on the primary issues in program
development: program strategies and their effectiveness and corporate and union
responsibilities in relation to the provision of services and confidentiality. Chapter
4 examines what happens when alcoholic and other troubled employees involve
their employers in workers' compensation and arbitration cases, and the role of
EAPs in such cases. Chapter 5 emphasizes the need for program evaluation, basic
research, and education and training to integrate research into practice.
In this Key Issues report we hope to clarify some of the confusion
surrounding EAPs by addressing the basic issues often raised by executives and
union leaders setting out to implement new programs or involved in maintaining
and improving existing programs. The report is based on the applied and evaluation
research that has been accumulating very slowly since the publication in 1972 of
Spirits and Demons at Work: Alcohol and Drugs on the Job (Trice and
Roman, revised in 1978). As in these earlier publications, we highlight the
workplace dynamics and the importance of impaired job performance as the basis
for constructive intervention, usually by the employee's immediate supervisor.
The importance of this approach has been underscored in recent cases of drug
screening and Fourth Amendment rights. As evidenced by the courts and by
arbitrators, the importance of the impairment standard is that it shifts the issue from
the privacy rights of the employee to the legitimate right of the employer to
intervene "because impaired performance violates the fundamental contract between

vii
employer and employees" (Trice and Roman, 1978:xiv). The following response
to the question of when drug screening might be justified suggests that EAPs
provide a viable alternative to drug screening-an alternative that is more consistent
with American traditions of fairness and justice than is drug testing.

The first [instance in which drug screening might be justified]

concerns occupations in which there are elements of grave danger
to public, co-worker and individual safety; the second concerns
instances where employees have demonstrated deteriorating job
performance and there is reason to believe it is caused by
substance abuse. . . .

However, while companies may have some legal support for

drug screening in cases where job performance is deteriorating,
screening may not be really necessary. A well-run EAP is
sufficient for the identification of drug users in companies
where there are few or no dangerous jobs. . .. This is possible
because supervisors properly trained in constructive con-
frontation are equipped to break through the denial systems of
users, abusers, and addicts-regardless of the drugs in question. It
is important to emphasize, however, that the EAPs must be well
run and supervisors well trained (Sonnenstuhl and Trice,
1986a:28-29).

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank a number of people who have helped us in preparing this Key
Issues report. The "EAP Lunch Bunch,11 who read and commented on our early
draft, were particularly helpful. We would also like to thank our anonymous
reviewers for their feedback and Shirley Foster and Pat Noteboom for their patience
and diligence in typing the many drafts of this manuscript. Most of all we want to
thank Jozetta Srb, a research associate here at the school and our editor, for the
sincere interest she has taken in this manuscript. An original member of the Lunch
Bunch, she has patiently waded through an enormous amount of research to learn
about EAPs, knowledge she put to good work in prodding us to articulate clearly
the crucial balance. She was particularly helpful in revising chapter 4, for which
she sought out recent workers' compensation and arbitration cases. Finally, we
should like to thank R. Brinkley Smithers and the Christopher D. Smithers
Foundation for their financial support and encouragement.

viii
STRATEGIES FOR EMPLOYEE

ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS:

THE CRUCIAL BALANCE

This page intentionally left blank
 I

EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE: AN OVERVIEW

No one knows how many employee assistance programs (EAPs) currently exist
in the United States, but everyone agrees that since 1970 their number has increased
rapidly. William Dunkin, the former director of the National Council on
Alcoholism's Labor-Management Services, estimates that in 1970 there were
between three hundred and fifty and four hundred programs. The Executive
Caravan Surveys conducted in 1972, 1974, 1976, and 1979 found that the
percentage of Fortune 500 companies and leading utilities, transportation, and
financial corporations claiming to have programs increased from 25 percent in 1972
to 56 percent in 1979 (Roman, 1982). Some current estimates put the number of
U.S. companies with EAPs at more than five thousand and perhaps as many as ten
thousand (Bureau of National Affairs, 1986:40; Blum and Roman, 1985). The
Washington Business Group on Health predicts that EAPs will become the major
form for the delivery of mental health services to employees in the future
(Goldbeck, 1979).
Despite management and labor interest in EAPs, there is no consensus on what
constitutes a program. Companies call their programs by a bewildering number of
names: counseling, special health services, troubled employee, mental wellness,
occupational alcoholism, and, of course, employee assistance. Programs also
possess a wide variety of organizational structures. Some are located within
company medical departments and others within personnel departments; some are
administered by alcoholism specialists and others by mental health specialists-for
example, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers; some offer employees
extensive in-house treatment services, and others refer employees to community
service agencies. Regardless of their tides and organizational structures, however,
all are concerned with preventing, identifying, and treating personal problems that
adversely affect job performance.
Employee Assistance Terms Defined
For the purpose of this report, we define EAPs as job-based programs operating
within a work organization for the purposes of identifying "troubled employees,"
motivating them to resolve their troubles, and providing access to counseling or
treatment for those employees who need these services. The term troubled
employee refers to those individuals whose personal problems (such as alcoholism,
drug addiction, marital difficulties, and emotional distress) preoccupy them to the
extent that in either their own or their supervisors1 judgment, their work is
disrupted. We use the term troubled for several reasons. First, despite the
expansive nature of psychiatric diagnosis, the majority of employees who use EAPs
do not appear to be seriously disturbed in a psychotic sense (Sonnenstuhl, 1986;
Trice and Beyer, 1984b). These employees are more appropriately described as
being chronically troubled by their problems. Second, the term troubled employee
is historically consistent with the origin and use of the term employee assistance.
When the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

1
introduced the term employee assistance to distinguish their programs from those
being marketed by the National Council on Alcoholism, they described the program
as helping troubled employees to cope with personal problems. This usage was
picked up and popularized by James T. Wrich in his book The Employee
Assistance Program (1980). Finally, troubled employee reflects Robert M.
Emerson and Sheldon L. Messinger's usage in "The Micro-Politics of Trouble"
(1977). Employees' personal troubles are not static entities; rather they have a
natural history (Sonnenstuhl, 1986). Employees, either through self-reflection or
conversations with their coworkers and managers, are first vaguely aware that
something is wrong. In subsequent interaction, they either resolve their uneasiness
or discover that their problems are more troublesome than they had imagined. In
the process of searching for solutions, they come to see themselves as troubled.
Eventually, some of them seek help from the services provided by the EAP.
Within this context, supervisors identify troubled employees on the basis of
deteriorating job performance and use a strategy known as constructive
confrontation to motivate employees to resolve their troubles and improve their
performance. Constructive confrontation means that supervisors confront
employees with evidence of their unsatisfactory job performance, coach them on
ways to improve their work, urge them to use the services of the EAP if they have
personal problems, and, at the same time, emphasize to them the consequences of
continued poor performance.
Constructive confrontation proceeds in progressive stages. Initially, supervisors
informally discuss performance problems with employees, encouraging them to
seek help from the EAP if personal problems are adversely affecting their work. At
this stage, some employees will correct their performance and resolve their
problems without the help of the services provided by the EAP. For them,
feedback from their supervisors is sufficient motivation to change their behavior. If
employees do not improve their performance after several informal discussions,
supervisors then implement standard formal disciplinary procedures-verbal
warnings, written notices, suspension, and discharge. At each disciplinary step,
employees are urged to seek help from the EAP if personal problems are affecting
their performance.
Research from the industrial alcoholism studies shows that when this strategy is
properly implemented, most employees either will change their behavior or will
seek help from the EAP services before disciplinary action is initiated. In unionized
facilities, stewards also informally urge employees to improve performance and
resolve their troubles. In many instances, employees are encouraged by their
coworkers to seek help.
Throughout this monograph, we use the term counseling in a generic sense-that
is, to cover the assessment of employees' troubles, diagnosis, referral, and
treatment. Counseling services are provided either within the corporation, within
the community, or within some combination of the two. In-house EAP counseling
services generally are staffed by mental health or alcoholism specialists. Currently,
a wide variety of community organizations-such as alcoholism councils, family
service agencies, and mental health centers-and private consulting agencies contract
with companies to provide counseling services to employees. Since the mid-

2
seventies, these EAP service providers have proliferated, and they may now be the
predominant form in which counseling services are offered to employees. Indeed,
many companies and unions simply equate the use of such services with having an
EAP. As we point out in the pages that follow, however, a fully functioning
program recognizes and actively supports the roles played by supervisors,
stewards, and coworkers in preventing troubles, identifying troubled employees,
and motivating them to change their behavior.
Historical Antecedents of EAPs

Since the end of the nineteenth century, work organizations in the United States
have offered assistance to employees in many guises: social betterment, personnel
counseling, occupational mental health, and industrial alcoholism. Each of these
approaches blends management concerns for productivity with humanitarian
values-that is, employers believe that helping employees with their troubles
increases productivity. (A more extensive historical discussion than presented here
can be found in Sonnenstuhl, 1986; Trice and Beyer, 1984a; Steele, 1988; Roman,
1988; Ames, 1989; Staudenmeier, 1985. A detailed discussion of the social
betterment movement can be found in Brandes, 1970.)

Social Betterment
During the 1880s many companies began providing workers with social welfare
services. These services included inexpensive housing, company-sponsored
unions, sanitary working conditions, insurance, and pension plans, as well as
facilities for banking, recreation, medical care, and education. The National Civic
Foundation encouraged such employer philanthropy to ensure a stable labor force,
promote worker loyalty, combat unionism, and prevent strikes (Nelson and
Campbell, 1972). By 1913, there were approximately two thousand welfare
workers in industry (Carter, 1977).

During the mid-twenties the social betterment movement began to run out of
steam and by the mid-thirties it had run its course. According to Stuart D. Brandes
(1970), it died for several reasons. Employees became disenchanted with corporate
paternalism, the Depression forced companies to cut back on many operations, and
the Wagner Act of 1936 outlawed company-sponsored unions and encouraged
employees to organize independently. Since companies had lost the struggle against
unionism, they saw little reason to continue many of the betterment programs.
Such services as health examinations, pensions, and other benefits still exist, but
the comprehensive welfare programs of the social betterment era are gone.
Personnel Counseling

Personnel counseling grew out of the works of Elton Mayo (1923) and the
experiments conducted at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant during the twenties
and thirties-reported by Fritz Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson (1939). Mayo
believed that employees' irrational sentiments prevented them from cooperating
with management and caused unionization, slowdowns in production, and strikes.
Consequently, he recommended that companies develop psychiatric clinics "to
eliminate eccentricities from 'normal' persons engaged in industry" (Mayo,

3
1923:483). The researchers discovered that workers at the Hawthorne plant
systematically restricted output; established a "fair day's rate"; falsified records; and
subjected "rate busters" to ostracism, sabotage, and physical threats. Following
Mayo's thinking, the researchers interpreted the workers' lack of cooperation with
management as irrational and believed that the irrational sentiments had been
overcome by paying attention to workers' feelings and concerns. They reasoned
that demonstrating concern for workers increases their morale and thereby improves
productivity.
Western Electric's personnel counseling program, also called "control through
listening" (Dickson and Roethlisberger, 1966), trained some of the shop workers to
be counselors. These "counselors" wandered the shop floors, talked informally
with employees about personal and work issues, and invited those in need of
further counseling to their offices. The counselors listened empathetically to the
employees but did not give advice. They encouraged the workers to release their
pent-up feelings and to work through their problems rationally. Throughout the
forties and fifties, Western Electric's program was widely emulated by other
companies (Bellows, 1961).
There is little empirical research to support the conclusions reached in the
Hawthorne studies. For example, Alex Carey (1967) and A. J. M. Sykes (1965)
reexamined the Hawthorne studies and concluded that Roethlisberger and Dickson
were incorrect and that the data, rather than supporting human relations theory,
supported an old-world view about the value of monetary incentives, driving
leadership, and discipline. Reviewing the empirical research produced by the
human relations school, Charles Perrow (1972) reached a similar conclusion.
Nevertheless, the human relations theory remains a dominant management
philosophy, which is reflected in the number of companies calling their personnel
departments by the title "human resources management."
Occupational Mental Health
Occupational mental health programs have taken two approaches to emotional
problems in the workplace. The first approach emphasizes treatment for
emotionally impaired employees. Employees seek treatment either on their own
initiative or at management's encouragement. The second approach focuses on the
prevention of emotional problems in employees. Preventive activities consist of
teaching healthy beliefs and behaviors and designing healthy work environments.
Both approaches have been part of mental health programs since psychiatrists began
working in industry (see, for example, Burlingame, 1946; Southard, 1920).
Prior to World War II, only a handful of psychiatrists, psychologists, and
psychiatric social workers were employed in industry. When the war drained the
available labor pool and industries had to employ inexperienced workers, however,
the government funded hundreds of mental health and social service programs in
industry in an effort to help integrate these employees into the workplace (Carter,
1977). For example, Bertha C. Reynolds (1975) pioneered psychiatric social
work with the National Maritime Union's United Seamen's Service and Dr. F. W.
Dershimer established a psychiatric practice at DuPont (Ferguson and Fersing,
1965). Employees, however, were primarily treated in "emotional first-aid

4
stations" (Lott, 1946), where, it was argued, a minimum of on-the-job treatment
resulted in conspicuous on-the-job improvement (McLean, 1973).
After the war, the majority of companies shut down their mental health
programs, and throughout the fifties and sixties, the number of businesses with
programs remained small. For example, the Bureau of Business Research at the
University of Texas (Mumm and Spiegel, 1962) surveyed 1,100 companies with
"advanced personnel programs" and found that only 37 of the 567 companies that
replied to the survey had formal mental health programs. A Harvard Business
School report characterized management's disregard for employees' emotional
problems as a Legacy of Neglect (Ferguson and Fersing, 1965) and urged
companies to adopt mental health programs.
During the seventies and eighties, many companies developed prevention
programs focused on employees' emotional health. These efforts were primarily
intended to cut escalating health care costs and to increase declining worker
productivity. Wellness/health promotion programs, for example, teach workers
healthy beliefs and behaviors (e.g., Conrad, 1987a, 1987b, 1988; Fielding, 1984;
Sloan, Gruman, and Allegrante, 1987), and quality of work life demonstrations
redesign work in order to construct healthy environments (e.g., O'Toole,1973;
Faucheux, Amado, and Laurent, 1982; Pugh, Hickson, and Hinnings, 1985). The
impact of these programs on employees' emotional health, productivity, and health
costs has not been rigorously evaluated (e.g., Sonnenstuhl, 1988; Parker, 1985;
Becker, 1986).
An emerging preventive thrust centers on awareness of the workplace as a
source of risks for alcoholism and other behavioral disorders (Trice and
Sonnenstuhl, 1988; Trice and Sonnenstuhl, 1990). In short, this approach
recognizes that not only can the workplace be a locale for constructive confrontation
but also that it contains clear-cut hazards and risks. Examples are the presence of
occupational drinking cultures, mobile jobs, work-related stress, plant closings
and hostile takeovers, deskilling, and mandatory retirement. Efforts to reduce
these risks constitute a preventive effort, making the workplace less an "enabler" of
drug abuses and other psychiatric disorders. For instance, the definition of the
appropriate use of alcohol at the workplace may be changed relatively easily by
addressing drinking norms directly (e.g., using alcohol at lunch is inappropriate),
problem drinkers on mobile jobs can be transferred to ones providing closer
supervision, and mandatory retirements can be made more flexible so that an older
person's structure and purpose are not suddenly shattered by retirement.
Industrial Alcoholism
Industrial alcoholism programs were started during World War II (Trice and
Schonbrunn, 1981). Because problem drinking adversely affects work
performance, these programs use the power of the job to motivate problem drinkers
to change their behavior. When problem drinkers are confronted with the prospect
of losing their jobs because of unsatisfactory work performance and, at the same
time, are offered rehabilitation, they are likely to opt for treatment, become sober,
and improve their performance. During the sixties, this concept evolved into the
constructive confrontation strategy.

5
 Early industrial alcoholism programs were informal arrangements between
"occupational physicians" and dedicated members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
The physicians often became aware of employees' drinking problems because
supervisors reported them. Supervisors' suspicions were based on observations of
drinking on the job or of disruptive behavior; often they were based on personal
experiences and gossip. The doctors then encouraged AA members to approach the
suspects and impress on them that they were in danger of losing their jobs and that
if they sought help through AA, they could gain sobriety and retain their positions.
Individual companies gradually transformed this informal procedure into a formal
policy and program. The policy stated that alcoholism is a disease and stressed the
company's willingness to help alcoholics. Each program had an administrator,
often a member of AA, who either referred the alcoholic to AA or to an alcoholism
treatment program.
After the war, the Yale Center for Alcohol Studies promoted programs among
business and labor leaders. By the mid-fifties, there were approximately fifty to
sixty industrial alcoholism programs in the United States (Trice and Schonbrunn,
1981). In 1959, the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA), which had been allied
with Yale, began marketing programs. Lewis F. Presnall (1966), NCA's industrial
consultant, advocated the development of broad-based programs to assist alcoholic
and other troubled employees and the training of supervisors to implement the
constructive confrontation strategy. Based on his earlier experience as director of
Kennecott Copper's Chino Mines Counseling Program and research developed by
Harrison M. Trice (1962a, 1962b), Presnall believed that this was the most
effective means of reaching alcoholic employees. By 1970, industrial programs
were considered an integral ingredient in the identification and treatment of
alcoholics. Consequently, when the federal government established the NIAAA in
1971, an "occupational" branch was organized to market programs to business and
labor.
Employee Assistance Programs
NIAAA coined the term employee assistance program to establish an identity
separate from the National Council on Alcoholism. The institute believed that
alcoholism was the most prevalent personal problem of employees and that the
workplace was the most effective place to identify, motivate, and provide for
treatment of alcoholics. To promote EAPs, NIAAA funded two occupational
program consultants (OPCs) in each state. Many of the OPCs recruited were not
alcoholism treatment advocates; rather they were psychologists and social workers
trained in the mental health traditions. Thus, the OPCs split into two groups-the
alcoholism constituency and the mental health constituency.
Both groups promoted EAPs with similar claims that employees' personal
problems are caused by factors outside the workplace and treating those problems
will improve employees' job performance. Both recommended that supervisors be
trained in constructive confrontation and that employees be encouraged to refer
themselves for counseling to the program. But the two groups differed in their
emphasis. The alcoholism constituency emphasized the importance of treating
alcoholism and the centrality of the constructive confrontation strategy for

6
motivating alcoholics. The mental health constituency emphasized the importance
of treating all personal problems equally, deemphasized the constructive
confrontation strategy, and stressed that troubled employees must seek help from
the EAP on their own initiative. Paul M. Roman (1981) and Harrison M. Trice
and Janice M. Beyer (1984a) have found that in adopting EAPs, some employers
have shown considerable interest in the mental health group's emphasis because
they believe that providing counseling services that the employees can use is
sufficient and will relieve supervisors from having to manage difficult workers.
Why EAPs Are Adopted
Between 1974 and 1976, the OPC network in New York State helped to
develop or revitalize over three hundred and twenty job-based programs (Trice,
Beyer, and Coppess, 1981). Between 1971 and 1980, OPC efforts helped to
increase the number of national programs from approximately three hundred and
fifty to an estimated five thousand. And by 1981, their success had spawned some
two hundred private EAP consulting services selling employee counseling to
companies (Roman, 1981). Why do companies adopt EAPs? Several rationales
are evident. Companies adopt EAPs primarily on ideological grounds. Data from
national surveys reported by Roman (1982) and from a field study by Trice and
Beyer (1984a) using both quantitative and qualitative methods indicate that
employers concerned about their employees1 welfare and those concerned about
their social responsibility to the community are more likely to adopt EAPs than
employers who do not express these sentiments. Simply stated, programs are
adopted because employers believe that helping employees to solve their personal
problems is good business and demonstrates social responsibility.
It is often suggested that companies adopt programs because they are cost-
effective. Although it is extremely difficult to obtain accurate cost-benefit
predictions for many management programs (Strauss and Sayles, 1967),
cost-benefit analyses reporting significant benefits from industrial alcoholism
programs have been published. These reports use a number of different methods
for analyzing program costs and benefits (Schramm, 1980; Trice, 1980). The most
common method is to compare employee performance prior to treatment with
performance after treatment and to assign a dollar value to it. A wide range of
indicators have been used to evaluate performance, including number of days
absent, number of on-the-job and off-the-job accidents, number of discipline and
grievance procedures, amount of insurance premiums, and amount of work
completed. These studies generally report significant benefits, which they attribute
to program treatment. At least one early study of an Ohio firm, however, did
conclude that treatment of problem drinkers and employees with other personal
problems was not economically efficient (Winslow et al., 1966).
According to Roman (1982), employers who adopt EAPs report their programs
are cost-effective, and some are able to produce cost-benefit analyses to prove it.
Alternatively, companies that have not adopted EAPs reject the notion that programs
are cost-effective. This difference probably reflects the underlying ideologies of the
employers. Those who believe that helping employees is good business uncritically
accept the analyses as supporting their decisions to adopt EAPs and those who
reject this belief characterize the analyses as methodologically flawed.

7
 Martin Shain and Peggie Walden (1980) suggest the possibility that managers
also adopt EAPs as "conflict-avoiding devices." Based on fair employment laws
and labor contracts, the amount of discretion that employers can use in hiring,
supervising, and firing employees is often restricted. For example, some labor
arbitrators have ruled that dismissal and punitive discipline are inappropriate for
employees with alcohol, drug, and emotional problems; and they have
recommended that employers provide help for troubled employees (Denenberg and
Denenberg, 1983; Greenbaum, 1982). In this context, rehabilitation is seen as a
first step in helping employees to cope, and dismissal is considered a last resort
(Emerson, 1981), to be used when all else fails.
Union Reactions to Employee Assistance
Historically, union leaders have had mixed reactions to management programs to
assist employees. On the one hand, they want the services for their members; on
the other, they perceive such services as attempts to undermine the union's
authority and its traditional role as helper to union members (see, for example,
Baritz, 1961; Brandes, 1970; Carter, 1977). Such concerns are not unfounded.
For example, the National Civic Federation promoted social betterment as a way to
deter union organizing (Brandes, 1970; Nelson and Campbell, 1972), and the
Hawthorne experiments and their attendant counseling programs were undertaken
in part to keep Western Electric union-free (Baritz, 1961).
Unions prefer to operate their own mental health programs and have provided
members with a wide range of services. Since World War II, the AFL-CIO's
Community Services Department has operated a peer counseling program for its
members. Its former director, Leo Perlis (1980), calls it the oldest continuous EAP
in the United States. Its structure parallels Western Electee's Personnel Counseling
Program, and since its inception, several hundred thousand union members have
been trained to counsel millions of coworkers about a wide range of troubles. In
addition, many of the AFL-CIO's central labor councils also provide professional
mental health and social services to members. During the forties, fifties, and sixties
a number of unions established their own comprehensive psychiatric clinics as well
(Ferguson and Fersing, 1965; McLean, 1973). More recently, some unions have
developed pretreatment referral programs. These programs contract with an
employer to provide diagnostic and referral services for troubled employees
(Johnson, 1981). In New York State, the International Longshoremen's
Association and the National Maritime Union of America operate such programs.
In promoting EAPs, the NCA and the NIAAA have encouraged labor and
management to develop joint programs, but such development has been slow (Trice
and Beyer, 1982a; Johnson, 1981). Unions distrust the idea of constructive
confrontation because they condemn formal rating and supervisory evaluation
methods as inconsistent with the seniority principle (Trice, Hunt, and Beyer,
1977). They believe that programs should be used to create well-adjusted human
beings rather than to increase production (Perlis, 1980). Unions are also wary of
any management program focused on mental health problems (Roman, 1981).
They fear that the inclusive nature of mental health diagnosis is an open-ended
device whereby union members who challenge management authority can be
diagnosed as troubled employees, then treated and eventually fired. These concerns

8
are difficult to overcome, but Beyer, Trice, and Richard Hunt (1980) have found
that where management and labor are able to cooperate, they have helped alcoholic
and other troubled employees.
Member Assistance
Although the majority of research on EAPs has focused on supervisors'
interventions with alcoholic and other troubled employees, there is a growing body
of literature on peer interventions. Peer confrontation represents the power of
occupations to intercede and assist their members. For instance, many unions
(e.g., Molloy, 1989; Weed, 1980; Miller and Oliver, 1988; Feuer, 1987; Eichler,
Goldberg, Kier, and Allen, 1988) as well as some occupational and professional
associations (e.g., Bissell and Haberman, 1984; McCrady, 1989; Kilburg,
Nathan, and Thoreson, 1986), operate their own member assistance programs
(MAPs). Unlike EAPs, which primarily emphasize the role of supervisors, MAPs
emphasize the role of peers in identifying and motivating alcoholic and other
troubled employees to change their behavior (Trice and Sonnenstuhl, 1990a;
Sonnenstuhl, 1990). Often MAPs are built around a group of occupational
members who belong to Alcoholics Anonymous and carry the fellowship's
message of sobriety to their coworkers (Sonnenstuhl and Trice, 1987). Within this
context, peers use their own version of constructive confrontation. The AAs
confront suspected coworkers on and off the job, emphasizing that the coworkers'
drinking is adversely affecting their work, family, and social relations and that help
is available through the member assistance program and Alcoholics Anonymous.
The constructive confrontation strategy employed by peers, however, is more
flexible than that employed by supervisors in joint management-union programs
because peers need not confine their interventions to observations of unsatisfactory
performance. Peers are free to confront coworkers on the basis of gossip and off-
the-job behavior. The gossip generally includes talk about how the coworkers'
drinking is affecting their performance, but it also includes talk about family and
physical problems. In the ensuing confrontations, the AAs use such evidence to
demonstrate to coworkers how drinking is destroying their lives.

Although the content and process of confrontation differ in joint management -

union EAPs and MAPs, the strategy they employ to break through alcoholic denial
is quite similar. In EAPs, the process follows the outlines of progressive discipline
and the content revolves around job performance; in MAPs, the process and content
are more fluid. Both, however, employ a combination of constructive and
confrontative elements to break through denial and to define what is appropriate and
inappropriate behavior. The constructive elements underscore that the drinkers are
valued and that change is possible; the confrontative elements highlight the stakes in
not changing.
In addition to helping alcoholics, MAPs assist members with other drug, family,
and emotional problems (e.g., Perlis, 1980; Perlow, 1979). Unfortunately,
empirical research on these helping processes does not yet exist.

9
 Summary
Against a historical backdrop, EAPs can easily be seen to be descendants of a
long line of programs combining concerns for productivity and compassion. At
times employers adopted these programs to avoid unionization and retain control of
the workplace. Many, however, adopted programs because they believed that
helping employees solve their troubles is good for workers as well as the company.
This ideology is, and will continue to be, a potent factor in the adoption of EAPs.
Unionized companies may have special problems in establishing and
implementing EAPs. Like their management counterparts, union officials believe
deeply in helping workers. But whereas employers perceive doing so is a way to
increase productivity, union officials see it as a way to maintain labor solidarity and
are wary of management control of the EAP at the company level. As a
consequence, conflict frequently ensues. Discovering ways to ensure a balance
between management and labor concerns is essential to the operation of EAPs in
unionized companies.

10
 II

EAP PROGRAM COMPONENTS AND IMPLEMENTATION

While there is still no general agreement on what constitutes an EAP or where it

fits in the organizational structure, certain basic components are generally
considered essential to the implementation of a program. In this chapter we will
discuss these essentials: program policy, top management support, program
coordination, supervisory training, employee education, counseling resources, and
union involvement.
Program Policy

One way to begin to understand how an EAP works is to examine a typical

program policy. Policy is the cornerstone of an effective EAP because it articulates
the balance between the role of supervisors and others in the workplace
(constructive confrontation) and the role of practitioners in the counseling
component of the program. The importance of a written EAP policy cannot be
emphasized too strongly. Research shows repeatedly that supervisors' willingness
to confront employees whose performance is impaired and, if necessary, refer
them to counseling is related to the presence of a written policy and familiarity with
it (Beyer and Trice, 1984a, 1978; Googins, 1978; Googins and Kurtz, 1981).
Without a clearly written and widely publicized policy, supervisors and managers
often do not know how to deal with employees' personal problems constructively.
According to Presnall (1967), companies without written policies have unwritten
procedures for handling troubled employees-that is, simply to muddle through until
the employees' behavior becomes so disruptive that the employees must be fired.
The inevitable consequences of muddling-through are exhausted supervisors and
managers, angry workers, hostile unions, and depleted resources. An EAP policy
provides a guide for a path through the confusion.

While there are some general guidelines for developing an EAP policy, the final
document should be shaped by a company's existing policies on performance,
discipline, and medical practices. The EAP policy is a bridge to these other
practices. The sample EAP policy (exhibit 1) is a skeleton that points out some of
the more general EAP principles. A company's final EAP policy, however, should
be fleshed out in accordance with its existing personnel policies and practices.
Above all, the policy should reflect the principle that, on one hand, an EAP is a
job-based technique for identifying troubled employees and motivating them to
change their behavior, and, on the other, it is a mechanism for providing access to
counseling services for employees.

Principle 1: The EAP is a job-based strategy for helping employees solve

their problems. Everyone has problems, and to believe otherwise is absurd. How
people define those problems, with whom they choose to discuss them, and how
they resolve them are the individual's affair. In most cases, the problems do not
disrupt employees' work. When they affect performance, however, the company
has an obligation and a legitimate right to help employees resolve those problems.

11
 Exhibit 1: A Sample Employee Assistance Program Policy

PURPOSE
XYZ Corporation cares about the well-being of its employees and recognizes that a variety of
personal problems can disrupt their personal and work lives. For instance, alcoholism is a
treatable disease with devastating effects on one's personal health, family, and work. Drugs,
family problems, and emotional distress can have similar effects. Most people solve their
problems either on their own or with the advice of family and friends; however, sometimes people
need professional advice. XYZ Corporation, through its EAP, provides access to professional
counseling services for its employees, and those in need of professional assistance are encouraged
to use it. In those facilities where XYZ Corporation has union contracts, the company will
conduct the EAP as a cooperative and joint venture with labor's elected representatives.

XYZ Corporation recognizes that it has no right to interfere unless employees' personal
problems adversely affect their job performance. When unsatisfactory performance does occur,
supervisors will encourage employees to solve their problems on their own or with the assistance
of the EAP services.

POLICY
The EAP operates within the following framework:
1. A wide range of problems may affect employees' job performance adversely.
These include alcohol and drug addiction, marital and family difficulties, and
emotional distress. The EAP will assist employees to resolve these problems and
others for which employees may seek help.
2. Employees' current jobs and future advancement will not be jeopardized by using
EAP services.
3. As with all health and personnel documents, EAP records will be maintained in a
confidential manner.
4. When necessary, sick leave may be granted for treatment and rehabilitation on the
same basis as it is granted for other health problems.
5. Employees will be responsible for complying with the EAP service's recommendations
and treatment plans.
6. The EAP service will also be available to employees' families.

PROCEDURE
1. Employees who need professional advice are encouraged to use the EAP's
counseling services, and those whose personal problems adversely affect their
work are encouraged to seek help voluntarily from the EAP services.
2. Supervisors are responsible for confronting employees about their unsatisfactory
performance and helping them to improve their work.
a. Supervisors bring employees' unsatisfactory work to their attention and
encourage them to solve the problem on their own or with the help of the EAP
counseling services. Supervisors also point out to the employees that
continued unsatisfactory performance will lead to formal discipline.
b. If performance improves, no further action will be taken.
c. If job performance continues to be unsatisfactory, regardless of whether or not
employees have accepted help, regular disciplinary procedure will be followed,
up to and including discharge. At each step of the procedure, supervisors will
encourage employees to seek help from the EAP counseling service.

12
 Principle 2: Constructive confrontation is used to motivate employees to
resolve their problems and to overcome denial. In some instances, workers may
be unaware that they have a problem, either because no one has pointed it out to
them or because when someone has pointed it out, they have denied its existence.
Supervisors may become aware of employees' personal problems in the give and
take of everyday activities and offer them1 friendly advice or encourage them to seek
help from the EAP. When employees work deteriorates, supervisors confront
employees and help them correct their performance. Such confrontation occurs
within the company's established guidelines for due process, and at each step
employees are encouraged to solve the problems on their own or with the EAP's
assistance in order to prevent formal disciplinary action. Constructive confrontation
provides a powerful motivation for employees to solve their problems one way or
the other because it demonstrates both the possible consequences of inaction and a
way to help resolve the problems.
Principle 3: Counseling is used to help solve problems when it is clear that
they are beyond employees' control. As employees look for solutions, they may
eventually conclude that their own resources are exhausted and that the problems
are beyond their control. At this point, troubled employees are most susceptible to
seeking professional help (Sonnenstuhl, 1986). Rushing them into treatment at an
earlier stage puts them at risk of being labeled "mentally ill" unnecessarily.
According to Joseph Veroff et al. (1981), Americans continue to fear that they will
be stigmatized by going into mental health treatment, and they often reject the
"normal" person who seeks psychotherapy more than the "severely disturbed"
person who does not seek it (Phillips, 1963). In the process of looking for help,
however, employees may learn, in conversations with their supervisors and with
coworkers who have used the services of the EAP, to overcome the fear of
stigmatization (Sonnenstuhl, 1986, 1990; Harris and Fennell, 1988). When
employees do go to the EAP they want to be assured that the EAP will treat their
case confidentially and that their current and future positions with the company will
not be jeopardized by using the EAP services.
The sample EAP policy (exhibit 1) reflects these general principles and ensures
balance between constructive confrontation and counseling in the program. The
purpose clause establishes that the EAP is job-based and that employees normally
solve their problems without professional assistance. The policy section reflects the
company's commitment to helping employees work through their troubles. Within
this section, companies may wish to restate their current policies on the
confidentiality of personnel and medical records and its applicability to EAP
records. In this section, the company may also wish to integrate its policies on sick
leave. The procedures section of the EAP policy emphasizes the program's
availability to employees and describes how supervisors are to use the policy.
Within this section, the company should integrate its current policies on due
process.
EAP Sensitivity to Alcoholism
Historically, broadly focused EAPs developed out of job-based alcoholism
programs. Reflecting this development, there has been a great deal of discussion
among employee assistance workers whether EAPs ought to be alcoholism-

13
focused, often interpreted as alcohol-only, or broadly focused on all employee
troubles. In practical terms, this is a moot question because all contemporary EAPs
are broad-brush. Effective programs remain very sensitive toward alcohol abuse
and dependence, however, because they are the most prevalent psychiatric
disorders among Americans and because job-based strategies are highly effective in
reaching these workers.
A study of the lifetime prevalence of specific psychiatric disorders among
approximately seventeen thousand community residents over the age of eighteen
years showed alcohol abuse or dependence as the most common disorder (Robins
et al., 1984). A companion piece of research-a six-month prevalence study-
showed much the same thing (Myers et al., 1984). In addition, since alcoholism
carries an increased risk of death, alcohol dependency rates in older populations
may be reduced by mortality (Gallant, 1983). Similarly, research from the
National Institute of Drug Abuse reveals that alcohol is the most widely used and
abused drug in the United States (e.g., Johnston, O'Malley, and Bachman, 1987;
NIDA, 1987a, 1987b, 1987c ). These epidemiologic findings confirm the need for
EAPs to continue to focus primarily on alcoholism and alcohol abuse, although
most programs have expanded their efforts to help employees with other troubles.
Research also shows that "significant others" in the work environment-
managers, supervisors, and shop stewards-express considerable willingness to
identify and refer employees with disruptive drinking problems to treatment.
Ronald L. Crawford and Hugh Adamson (1980) demonstrated in a study of a large
multinational firm that managers more readily recognized and showed greater
readiness to use professional services for alcoholism cases than for six other types
of psychiatric disorders. This finding is consistent with what is shown in Cornell
University's Program on Alcoholism and Occupational Health data sets derived
from studies of managers in a large utility company (Trice, 1965); a large university
(Belasco and Trice, 1969); federal installations from all departments of the
executive branch of government (Beyer and Trice, 1978); and nationwide locations
of a private, for-profit manufacturing firm (Trice and Beyer, 1984b). Each of these
data sets shows a willingness among managerial personnel to identify employees
with alcohol-related problems and to refer them to professional services.
Over the past quarter of a century a "core technology" to deal with alcoholic
employees has developed (Roman and Blum, 1985, 1988a; Roman, 1988). In
sharp contrast, however, there has been little, if any, accumulated knowledge
regarding job-based strategies for other forms of emotional disturbances. Roman
and Terry C. Blum (1985:18) insist that "EAPs are singular in their provision of
constructive attention to alcohol problems in the workplace... .It is only in dealing
with alcohol problems that EAPs have established a clearcut record across different
workplaces and different degrees of program elaboration."
The Core Technology of EAPs
In addition to the centrality of employees' alcohol problems in EAPs, Roman
and Blum spelled out five other elements that are unique to EAP practice and
distinguish it from other workplace interventions.

14
 First, the identification of employees' personal problems is based on job
performance, which is contrary to the usual approach of identifying personal
problems by more general symptoms. EAPs use the job performance standard for
two reasons: (1) according to standards of industrial justice, management cannot
intervene in employees1 personal lives unless performance is affected, and (2) there
is disagreement over the meaning of early versus late symptoms, even among
well-trained diagnosticians. By training supervisors and union stewards to pay
attention to performance issues, EAPs adhere to standards of industrial justice and
introduce an objective criterion for deciding when something becomes a problem.
Second, EAP specialists are expected to provide expert consultation and advice
to supervisors, managers, and union stewards on how to follow the program's
policies and procedures. Here the EAP specialist assists in deciding whether a
given case is appropriate for referral to the program's counseling component or
might be better managed by other means, such as retraining employees or
reassigning them to different jobs.
Third, EAP specialists are expected to advise and discuss with supervisors,
managers, and union stewards the strategy and appropriate use of constructive
confrontation throughout the entire process of referral and return to work.
Instruction in the use of constructive confrontation is important because the strategy
runs contrary to the overly sympathetic and helpful way most of us respond to
troubled people. Constructive confrontation allows supervisors to be supportive
while encouraging troubled employees to take responsibility for their behavior and
giving them options for doing so.
The fourth and fifth components consist of linking the program with community
resources when necessary. Here the EAP specialist (coordinator) uses knowledge
of confidentiality regulations and the specific types of community or
entrepreneurial service providers available-and exercises ethical judgment to avoid
unnecessary referrals as well as to avoid serving the vested treatment interests of
either nonprofit or for-profit organizations.
Taken as a whole, these elements of the core technology set EAP work apart
from that of other occupations. Other occupations may include one or two
components of the core technology, but none encompasses all of them. For
instance, social workers are well versed in referring employees to community
agencies but may have little training in how the workplace operates; personnel
managers understand the workplace but may have little knowledge of community
treatment resources.
Top-Management Support
According to folk wisdom, the most important factor in implementing policy is
the support of top management. Indeed, administration courses in schools of
management, industrial relations, social work, and public health tend to give
students the impression that once a decision is made at the top, its implementation
magically follows. Empirical research on EAPs does not support this impression.
While top management support for the EAP may be essential to policy adoption,

15
it is by no means sufficient for program implementation. For example, according to
Beyer and Trice (1978), many directors of federal installations were ambivalent
about implementing the government's alcoholism policy and their ambivalence
was communicated to supervisors and facilitators. Many directors, however,
supported the policy because they perceived a need for it in their installations.
These managers reflected that perception in their own implementing behavior,
which in turn affected the actions of program facilitators and supervisors,
regardless of whether the manager exercised a great deal or very little power in the
installations. The finding that directors who perceive a need for the policy are most
likely to implement it suggests that excess reliance on the influence of top
management to implement a policy may be misplaced. Excess reliance on the
power of top management may lead to the neglect of other implementing strategies,
such as creating familiarity with the policy-a force that Bradley Googins (1978) and
Googins and Norman Kurtz (1981) found to be very potent among lower-status
managers and facilitators.
Program Management and Coordination
Every company and union needs someone inside the work organization to
manage and coordinate the EAP. Management entails seeing that the EAP policies
and procedures are implemented throughout the organization, and coordination
essentially entails seeing that supervisors and stewards are aware of their role in the
program and that employees in need of services receive them. While it is tempting
to contract out these managing and coordinating responsibilities to EAP service
providers, it should be recognized that such agents may lack the necessary influence
and organizational knowledge of insiders. When working with agencies that
provide EAP counseling services, the program coordinator is responsible for
ensuring that supervisors and stewards receive appropriate training and alcoholic
and other troubled employees receive treatment when it is necessary. (See exhibits
2 and 3 for sample job descriptions of EAP staff.)

Exhibit 2: Job Description for Director of

XYZ's Employee Assistance Program
RESPONSIBILITIES
The director of the EAP reports to XYZ's Vice President of Human Resources and is
responsible for implementing and managing the corporate EAP policy and procedures in the
company's business units. Specific responsibilities include:
1. Recommendation and implementation of approved changes in XYZ's Employee
Assistance Policy and Procedures throughout the corporation.
2. Coordination of program activities with the employee relations and medical offices
in the business units to ensure consistency in achieving company goals.
3. Procuring or conducting training on EAP policy and procedures for all levels of
management, EAP staff, labor representatives, human resources managers, and
medical personnel.
4. Evaluation of qualifications and capabilities of individuals and organizations used
to provide counseling services to EAP employees.
5. Maintaining contact with outside organizations as appropriate.
6. Monitoring the EAP and utilizing evaluation findings to enhance its effectiveness.

16
QUALIFICATIONS
1. A strong understanding of organizational structures and processes, including a
knowledge of XYZ's business units and its human resources management and
medical divisions.
2. A general understanding of the health and social service resources available to
XYZ's employees. Counseling experience may be helpful but is not required.
3. A high level of skills in program management and administration, written and oral
communications, education and training, and negotiating with outside organizations.

Exhibit 3: Job Description for Coordinator of

XYZ's Employee Assistance Program

RESPONSIBILITIES
Every XYZ facility will designate an employee assistance coordinator. Who actually performs
this role may vary from location to location depending on the availability of personnel. In
facilities large enough to have a human resources management department and/or a medical office,
the coordinator will be recruited from one of those departments. In smaller facilities, the part-time
EAP role may be assumed by someone in either a line-management or staff position. Specific
responsibilities of the EAP coordinator include:
1. Publicizing the EAP policy and procedure to all employees and their families.
2. Training managers, supervisors, and union representatives in the use of the EAP
policy.
3. Consulting with managers, supervisors, and stewards about how to manage
alcoholic and other troubled employees.
4. Evaluating and maintaining a directory of health and social service resources available to
facility employees.
5. Negotiating contracts with, and closely monitoring, EAP service providers.
6. Making informal assessments of employees1 personal problems and directing them
to appropriate community resources for diagnosis and counseling.
7. Ensuring that employees receive appropriate assistance.

QUALIFICATIONS
Specific qualifications include:
1. A knowledge of the local facility's policies, practices, and procedures and of
local community resources.
2. A high level of compassion for employees' personal difficulties.
3. Skills in administration, verbal communication, education and training, and
community relations. Counseling experience is helpful but not necessary.

Specialists in the EAP field disagree about who should coordinate the program.
Wrich (1980) says that he knows people with a wide range of backgrounds who
perform this job successfully, including Ph.D. clinical psychologists, psychiatric
social workers, high school graduates, AA members, industrial nurses, and career

17
personnel administrators. He finds that, regardless of their backgrounds, all of
these people are sympathetic toward employees with problems and show a
willingness to help them. James Manuso (1983:122), however, states, "Educational
background should be at the doctoral level in psychology, psychiatry, or clinical
social work. Staff members should certainly be skilled diagnosticians and
practitioners of short-term group and individual psychotherapy." Disagreement
stems partially from different perceptions of the coordinator's function. Wrich sees
the coordinator doing preliminary assessments of employees1 problems and
referring the employees (when necessary) to outside resources for treatment.
Manuso sees the coordinator doing short-term counseling as well as referring
employees in need of longer-term treatment. Both, however, may overemphasize
the coordinator's role in counseling and deemphasize the role of internal change
agent.
Program coordinators are primarily internal change agents who ensure that the
EAP policy is implemented and that a balance between workplace dynamics and
counseling is maintained. Beyer and Trice (1978) studied the role of the program
coordinator when they examined the federal government's implementation of its
alcoholism and equal employment opportunity policies in a sample of seventy-one
installations. The coordinator role in those installations was part-time, and the
people assigned to it held other positions within the agencies as well. Sometimes
the positions were line management, and other times they were staff positions.
Implementation of the program consisted of publicizing the policies to all managers
and developing appropriate organizational structures to process individuals with
affirmative action complaints or drinking problems. In the alcoholism program,
coordinators trained managers and supervisors to use constructive confrontation
and referred problem drinkers to community rehabilitation programs for treatment.
In this study, Beyer and Trice found that effective alcoholism program
coordinators (1) held line-management rather than staff positions, (2) did not have
overly formalized job descriptions that restricted their actions, (3) were not
overloaded by the coordinator role, (4) had adequate staff and time to do the
coordinator's job, and (5) supported change generally and the alcoholism policy
specifically. These findings suggest that companies can implement effective
programs without greatly increasing personnel and by relying on community
agencies to provide treatment. Under these conditions coordinators are responsible
for training managers and supervisors and for directing employees needing help to
outside resouces.
Supervisory Training
Since the early 1970s, the job-performance model used in training supervisors
for their role in implementing industrial alcoholism programs has grown in
popularity (Etchen and Roman, 1977). Generally, the model consists of (1)
defining program policy, (2) emphasizing the degree of management support for it,
(3) explaining the supervisors' role in implementing it, and (4) demonstrating how
it can be integrated into supervisors' existing responsibilities for employee job
performance.
James A. Belasco and Trice (1969) demonstrated the model's effectiveness in a
controlled experiment. They divided 222 first-line supervisors into several groups:

18
Group A completed questionnaires (tests)-concerning their attitudes toward
alcoholism and other general emotional disturbances-before and after training;
Group B received training and completed only the posttraining questionnaire;
Group C completed pre- and posttraining questionnaires but received no training;
Group D completed only the posttraining questionnaire. In addition, two series of
training programs were run. During the first series supervisors received
instruction in how to manage problem employees generally; during the second
series supervisors received instruction in how to manage alcoholic employees.
Training in both groups consisted of case studies, reading assignments, lectures,
films, and discussions. The discussions focused on what supervisors would do in
each case, why they would do it, and the consequences of those actions.
Belasco and Trice concluded that (1) training alone produced relatively small
changes in the supervisors' willingness to confront alcoholic and troubled
employees, (2) completing the questionnaires (tests) alone produced rather
pronounced changes in supervisors' willingness to confront such employees, and
(3) the combination of testing and training produced more changes in their
willingness than did training alone. They also found that using an approach for
problem employees in general resulted in more favorable changes in supervisors'
willingness to confront them than did the traditional emphasis on alcoholic
employees-a finding that provided the major justification for the "broad-brush"
development of EAPs. Belasco and Trice further recommended that EAP training
be conducted within the context of a company's standard program for teaching
supervisors to conduct performance appraisals and manage marginal performers.
A number of research instruments could be used to assess the impact of
supervisory training: attitude and behavior change of supervisors (Belasco and
Trice, 1969), the best-worst technique (Beyer and Trice, 1984), receptivity to use
of the EAP/aJcoholism policy (Beyer and Trice, 1978), and the behavioral index of
troubled employees (Bayer and Gerstein, 1988). Such instruments could be used
to assess supervisors' attitudes toward and receptivity to the constructive
confrontation strategy before and after training.
Peer Training
Peers play important roles in both employee and member assistance programs.
They constructively confront troubled coworkers, share their own troubled
experiences with them, and tell them about the program's effectiveness and
trustworthiness. Although data suggest that these roles are critical in helping
coworkers to see themselves as troubled and decide to take advantage of the
program (e.g., Sonnenstuhl, 1982, 1990; Harris and Fennell, 1989), few
organizations, with the exception of the AFL-CIO's community services (Perlis,
1980) and some member assistance programs such as the National Maritime Union
(Molloy, 1989) and the Airline Flight Attendants Association (Feuer, 1987), have
developed peer training. Consequently, almost nothing is known about what
constitutes effective training for these roles.
In the future, both employee and member assistance programs will need to
develop peer training. Building on the experience of the AFL-CIO community
services and member assistance programs, such training would teach peers to

19
identify troubled coworkers, confront them constructively, and refer them for help.
In addition to providing peers with information on the work organization's own
assistance program, training needs to acquaint them with the wide range of personal
problems coworkers face and the variety of personal and community resources
available for resolving them.

Employee Education
Employee education has always been a part of occupational programs, and the
newer, broad-based EAPs continue to conduct education for all employees.
Today's curricula include posters, brochures, and workshops about a bewildering
number of personal troubles and their solutions (Presnall, 1981). Educational
materials generally stress prevention of problems, their early warning signs, and
the availability of referral to professional help when problems occur. Martin Shain
and Judith Groeneveld (1980) urge EAPs to develop workshops on life skills and
health, decision making, values clarification, and information giving-and to
coordinate their activities with such health promotion efforts as stress reduction,
weight control, exercise, and diet (see also Shain, Suurvali, and Boutilier, 1986).

Underlying all of these educational efforts is the basic assumption that mental
health treatment is the "modern" and "scientific" way to solve personal problems
and most individuals reject it out of ignorance and adherence to "primitive beliefs."
Education, then, is often meant to instruct employees in the "proper" attitudes so
that they will use mental health services "appropriately." This assumption,
however, remains unsubstantiated (Becker, 1979); it is just as likely that employees
adopt proper beliefs about mental health in response to using the services. EAP
specialists, for example, do not assume that simply providing health information
will prompt troubled employees to adopt new attitudes, take better care of
themselves, or seek help through the EAP. Indeed, this is a complex social process
in which people alternately seek and receive advice about their health conditions and
the options available to them, and such social processes have been found to be
remarkably resistant to change by health educators (Sonnenstuhl, 1982, 1986).
Consequently, troubled employees often must be confronted by family, friends,
coworkers, and supervisors before they will change their beliefs and behavior.
What kind of employee education is needed or appropriate for the EAP? At a
minimum, employees need to be aware of the company's policy and program, and
such information should be widely disseminated. Unfamiliarity with the policy and
its scope is likely to prevent employees from using it or lead to inappropriate use
(Harris and Fennell, 1988; Reichman and Beidel, 1989). Education programs,
however, might include information about a wide range of personal problems and
solutions-for example, information about alcohol and drug abuse, family problems
and stress management, what employees can do for themselves, self-help groups,
and professional counseling. This selection of subject matter would make
employees aware of the scope of the company's commitment to help them and also
encourage employees to help themselves.
A form of employee education called "wellness" has recently become popular.
According to Rebecca S. Parkinson and Associates (1982), the effectiveness of
these programs is untested, however, and probably will remain so since it is

20
difficult to know if the program alone has prevented emotional and psychiatric
disturbances. Many observers believe that the conspicuously well are attracted to
and participate in the programs (Conrad, 1987b, 1988). Nevertheless, there is an
inherent appeal in employee training in diet control, exercise, relaxation, smoking
cessation, coping techniques, and health screening. These strategies have been
imported into many workplaces by EAP practitioners because of pressures to
contain health costs, but they are not part of the EAP core technology. The best
evidence is that such tactics may reduce the risk of such physical conditions as
cancer and heart disease if employees can be induced to eat well, stop smoking, and
exercise. But there appears to be little, if any, evidence that they prevent alcohol
abuse or the many other psychiatric troubles that beset a work force. Shain and his
colleagues (1986) present evidence suggesting that a well-organized education
program can reduce the amount of alcohol employees consume and promote
appropriate beliefs about drinking. While it appears that such a program can
encourage moderate drinkers to reduce their consumption, it is unlikely that heavy
drinkers would react similarly. Given the voluntary nature of the program studied,
it is likely that alcoholic employees opted out of it entirely. For instance, Harris
and Fennell (1988) found that heavy drinkers were unlikely to use an EAP, and
this finding may also apply to wellness programs. Strictly speaking, wellness
programs are adjunct services that employees can be referred to by the EAP. For
detailed comparisons of employee assistance and wellness programs see Roman
and Blum, 1987, 1988, and Sonnenstuhl, 1988.

The Counseling Component

Every job-based program requires some method of providing help to those

employees who wish it. We use the term counseling genetically to cover a wide
range of tasks-preliminary assessments of employees' problems, diagnoses and
referrals, and treatment. Some EAPs provide only preliminary assessment and
referral, and others provide treatment as well. The early alcoholism programs relied
heavily on AA members and outside rehabilitation programs to counsel problem
drinkers. Today's more broadly based EAPs have developed a number of ways to
provide counseling services to employees.

Effective EAPs utilize two sets of beliefs that enable them to distinguish
between alcoholic and other troubled employees (Sonnenstuhl, 1990). According
to the mental health ideology, each individual is unique and must learn to adapt to
the multiple, often competing, roles of modern life. Consequently, counseling
consists of learning to identify the unique self and to nurture and use it in
confronting the world. Treatment then becomes a cooperative venture in which the
client is sufficiently motivated to help the counselors identify the problem and work
toward its resolution. In contrast, according to the alcoholism ideology, alcoholism
is a disease characterized by denial, which must be overcome so that the client will
be motivated to quit drinking and pursue sobriety. This means that counselors
must be more confrontative with alcoholics than with other troubled employees who
are perceived as counselors' allies. In confronting the alcoholic employee,
counselors downplay the unique self and underscore that a "healthy" life is
possible only if the individual joins Alcoholics Anonymous and follows its twelve
steps to sobriety. Keeping these ideologies in balance appears to make for effective
employee/member assistance programs.

21
 Practitioners distinguish between services that are provided internally and those
provided externally. Large work organizations may hire their own alcoholism
counselors, social workers, or clinical psychologists to counsel employees.
Smaller companies may contract with community therapists and agencies to provide
treatment services. Whether internal or external services are chosen, it is important
that the constructive confrontation strategy that takes place in the workplace and the
counseling component remain in balance; that is, companies and unions must
recognize that supervisors, stewards, and counselors have equally important, albeit
different, functions to play in the EAP.
In-House Services
In-house services consist of a wide variety of activities, ranging from simple
diagnosis and referral to extensive psychotherapeutic treatment of employees.
Programs with in-house services are generally staffed by mental health
professionals with strong clinical backgrounds. Many examples of this type of
program structure exist, and the literature contains descriptions of several large
organizations providing in-house services: Equitable Life Assurance Society
(Manuso, 1983) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (Feinstein and Brown,
1982) were reported to employ social workers, psychologists, and certified
alcoholism counselors who saw troubled employees during working hours. In
such instances, most counseling is by EAP staff and employees requiring more
specialized treatment are referred to outside agencies, particularly if the employees
need to be treated within long-term intensive rehabilitation programs. But even
long-term treatment is not beyond the scope of some EAP programs. For example,
Ann Bensinger and Charles F. Pilkington (1983) reported that United Technologies
Corporation operated its own alcoholism rehabilitation program.
Companies develop in-house services for a number of reasons. Many do so
because top executives are unfamiliar with mental health treatment generally and, to
ensure expertise in this area, hire clinicians to develop the programs. Some
companies provide in-house services because the employers believe this is the most
tangible way to express their humanitarian concerns to employees. Others do so
because they believe it is cost-effective. For example, United Technologies
implemented its alcoholism treatment program after evaluating the costs of treating
its alcoholic employees and concluding that many employees could be treated more
quickly and less expensively in a company-run program than in the standard
twenty-eight-day rehabilitation format.
Companies are most apt to provide in-house services in facilities with large
concentrations of employees because providing such services in smaller facilities is
not considered cost-effective. For example, reports indicate that Equitable Life and
Metropolitan Life did not duplicate their staff structures outside of corporate
headquarters and United Technologies did not duplicate its rehabilitation program
outside of Connecticut because the number of employees in other locations did not
justify such arrangements (Manuso, 1983; Feinstein and Brown, 1982).
In-house services are criticized for possibly jeopardizing employees' rights.
Some therapists argue that many employees who need professional help will not

22
use in-house services because they are afraid that management will learn of their
problems and hold it against them. This logic may be persuasive in some ways, but
empirical research has not resolved the argument. It is more certain, however, that
in-house services present therapists with conflicts of interests (Sonnenstuhl, 1986).
On the one hand, professional ethics stress that therapists must always act in the
best interest of their patients. On the other hand, as employees of the company,
they may feel compelled to resolve conflicts in the interest of their employer. When
therapists try to work out these conflicting demands, employees' best interests
might be compromised.
External Services
Many companies now contract with profit and nonprofit organizations to provide
mental health services for troubled employees (Feinstein and Brown, 1982;
Presnall, 1981). Some of these outside agencies provide a variety of services other
than treatment, for example, supervisor training, diagnoses of employees'
problems, and referrals to other treatment agencies. Service providers often operate
a form of hotline that employees in great distress can use to call for immediate help.
Companies are attracted to contract services for various reasons. Management
may see contracting out as a quick and efficient way to implement a program in
which no one in the company needs to take on the job of counseling employees and
referring them to outside resources for help. This arrangement is particularly
attractive to busy managers who are simply delegated the responsibility of
coordinating the program. Some executives like the idea of contract services
because they fear that if company clinicians treat employees, the company might be
liable for medical malpractice (Sonnenstuhl, 1986). They believe that contract
services are a way of shifting medical liabilities away from the company. Whether
this is so remains a question, but it is likely that contracting out to EAP service
providers merely increases the number of people who will be sued in malpractice
cases. Contract services do have one major drawback: many of the groups that
offer services do not have a great deal of experience with the workplace and may
emphasize counseling and deemphasize the role of supervisors in identifying and
motivating troubled employees. This posture can be particularly troublesome if
service providers train supervisors because there would be a tendency to
overemphasize the need to rush employees to professional treatment.
Research indicates that companies contemplating contracts with outside agencies
should consider integrating EAP training into their standard supervisory training
program, where it can be done by company personnel. If outside service persons
are allowed to do the training, the program coordinator should work closely with
them to ensure that the focus on job performance is maintained. In any event,
whenever a company or union uses an outside EAP service provider, or other
community resources, the program coordinator retains responsibility for ensuring
that supervisors and stewards receive appropriate training and that alcoholic and
troubled employees get adequate help.
Community Resource Network

A third strategy for delivering counseling services to employees is the use of

23
what we call the community resource network. This strategy recognizes that
agencies outside the company already provide a wide range of counseling services
that are available to employees and that the program coordinator's function is to
direct employees to those resources. This strategy was used by the federal
government in the implementation of its alcoholism policy and by William J.
Sonnenstuhl in the implementation of International Paper Company's EAP. In
International Paper's program, for example, the employee relations manager at each
of the company's local facilities was designated as the EAP coordinator. He or she
trained supervisors and union officials for their role in the program, conducted a
survey and compiled a list of all the community services, and provided employees
with such educational materials and programs as posters, films, and brochures.
There are several advantages to using the community resource network: (1)
treatment can be provided in the community under a company's existing medical
coverage, and (2) most local facilities come to feel that they have a vested interest
in the program and, therefore, may be more committed to making it work than
would those that do not have this sense of ownership. Nevertheless, there is at
least one disadvantage. When the local facility does not feel attached to the EAP
itself but to the coordinator and the coordinator leaves, the program may fall into
disrepair unless a new coordinator is designated quickly and establishes rapport
with the local agencies. Maintaining this form of counseling model also requires
continual reassessment of the community network and its functioning.
Union Support and Involvement
Beyer, Trice, and Hunt (1980) have found that in unionized facilities, union
support and involvement greatly improve the effectiveness of EAPs. For example,
they found for several reasons that supervisors in unionized federal installations
were more likely than supervisors in nonunion installations to use the government's
alcoholism policy. First, the unions generally supported the policy because they
viewed it as an additional benefit for their members and a method of extending their
traditional helping role to alcoholic employees. Second, union support was
conveyed to supervisors in training sessions emphasizing general supervisory
skills. Finally, unions emphasized their intentions to go to arbitration in cases in
which supervisors failed to confront alcoholic employees and to offer them
assistance. Thus, supervisors in unionized facilities were well informed about the
unions' support of the policy and were therefore more willing to use it.
Most labor-management experts would agree that to ensure support for the EAP,
the union should be involved in the formulation of policy. When left out, the union
will find it politically difficult to support the EAP, although it might see cooperation
as highly desirable. Involvement can be either informal or formal. The policy and
program may be worked out informally in a labor-management committee (Dyer,
Lipsky, and Kochan, 1977) or formally as part of the collective bargaining
agreement (Denenberg and Denenberg, 1983). The EAP's effectiveness, however,
may be greatest when labor and management work together informally.
Under the best of circumstances, labor-management cooperation on EAPs is
difficult because of the traditional adversarial approach of industrial and labor
relations. Leroy Johnson (1981), in a study of labor and management support for

24
EAPs, concludes that even when program aims are rather modest, cooperation is
difficult to accomplish. Trice and Beyer (1982a) found that cooperation on an
alcoholism policy is more likely to occur in union locals in which the officers
perceive problem drinking as a minor occurrence than in locals in which there is the
perception of a great deal of problem drinking. Cooperation is also more likely to
occur between managers and younger, lower-level union officers than between
managers and higher-level officers-who may see such cooperation as a political
liability. Union support and involvement can be increased by including union
officials in sessions that train managers and supervisors to use the constructive
confrontation strategy fairly and compassionately.

Cooperation has been shown to be particularly effective when supervisors and

stewards work together before the initiation of formal discipline. Research
indicates that when this approach is used, the majority of employees will resolve
their problems before punitive measures are called for. Once formal discipline goes
into effect, grievances may be filed and cooperation between management and labor
is more difficult because the process calls for unions to defend their members.
According to Tia S. Denenberg and R. V. Denenberg (1983), arbitration signals
the failure of management and labor to cooperate in assisting troubled employees.

In many instances, unions develop EAPs on their own without any management
involvement. Effective union-based member assistance programs usually include
(1) a policy statement that is widely disseminated to union members, (2)
unequivocal support from union officers and business agents, (3) an enthusiastic
program coordinator who is a union member and is given the time and resources to
make things work, (4) a steward training program, (5) a peer training program, (6)
a member education program, and (7) a mechanism for providing members and
their families with appropriate counseling services.

Some labor leaders and researchers question whether the EAP core technology
also applies to member assistance programs. In particular, they ask whether the job
performance standard and the use of constructive confrontation fit with the union's
responsibility to protect members' jobs. Research with the Tunnel and
Construction Workers MAP strongly suggests that they do but that they take on
slightly different meanings in union programs than in joint management-labor
programs (Sonnenstuhl and Trice, 1987). In joint programs, job performance acts
as the cue for supervisors to confront employees because, according to standards of
industrial justice, they cannot interfere in employees' private lives unless personal
problems adversely affect job performance. Union members are not bound by
any such standard and are free to intervene in employees' private lives on the basis
of other knowledge about coworkers' personal problems. Similarly, constructive
confrontation takes on slightly different meanings in each type of program. In joint
management-labor programs, constructive confrontation is integrated with the
agreed-upon disciplinary process. Again, because unions are not bound by the
same rules as management, the process is more fluid in union programs (see
Sonnenstuhl and Trice, 1987). In both types of programs, however, it is
employees' awareness that their deteriorating job performance may lead to job loss
that motivates them to change their behavior.

25
 Summary
Written EAP policies are essential in maintaining a job-based focus, with job
performance as a criterion, and in emphasizing the balance between the role of
managers, supervisors, and stewards in constructive confrontation and the role of
clinicians and other professionals in counseling. Research shows that while top
management support is necessary for program adoption, it is not always sufficient
for program implementation; program coordinators do not need clinical training to
implement policy, and the most effective EAP training for supervisors emphasizes
general supervisory skills for managing marginal performers. The practical
experience of many existing programs indicates that companies need not provide
in-house counseling services to their employees since there are other ways to
provide such services outside of the company, some of which may offer better
options for maintaining a balance between constructive confrontation and
counseling. Finally, experience and research indicate that in unionized companies,
labor and management need to cooperate from the beginning of policy formulation
to ensure that the program is effective.

26
 m

ISSUES IN PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

As indicated in chapters 1 and 2 and underscored in the sample policy (exhibit

1), EAPs reflect the notion that personal problems can affect an employee's job
performance and that helping the employee to solve those problems is both realistic,
in terms of increasing productivity, and compassionate, in terms of expressing
concern for the employee's well-being. The findings from basic and applied
research suggest that maintaining the critical balance in this equation calls for careful
consideration of (1) program strategies and their effectiveness and (2) corporate and
union responsibilities related to the provision of services, confidentiality, and third-
party payments.
Program Strategies and Their Effectiveness

To some extent all EAPs contain elements of both constructive confrontation and
counseling strategies. In exhibit 4, however, we have broken them into their
respective components to hypothesize two extreme models-those programs that
emphasize constructive confrontation and those that emphasize counseling. These
two types would occupy ends of a continuum along which actual programs with
varying degrees of constructive confrontation and counseling could be aligned.

Exhibit 4: Characteristics of Program Strategies

DIMENSIONS CONSTRUCTIVE CONFRONTATION COUNSELING

Model's Based on sociological theory, AA Based on theories of psychotherapy

Origin experiences, and personnel practices (e.g., psychodynamic,
behavioral, and humanistic)

Focus Focuses on job performance, emphasizing Focuses on cause of problem,

the natural setting and actors (i.e., emphasizing professional-client
supervisors and fellow employees) relationships in the therapeutic
setting

Cause of No causal theory of trouble; however, Cause of trouble is "something"

Trouble the cause or causes of a particular trouble within the individual or in his or her
can be worked out in the give-and-take social relationships, which the
process between the employee and his or psychotherapist helps the individual
her supervisor and/or coworkers to identify and learn to manage

Problem- Individual relies on everyday problem- Individual relies on psycho-

Solving solving techniques (e.g., advice from others) therapeutic techniques (e.g., behavior
Techniques modification, cognitive psycho-
therapy, prescription drugs,
family therapy)

27
 When examining program strategies, several questions are inevitably raised.
What is the strategy? What are the assumptions underlying it? And what outcome
is expected when the strategy is implemented? In evaluating effectiveness, one
simply asks, Did the strategy produce the expected outcome? To answer this
question requires demonstrating that the strategy and nothing else actually caused
the result. Researchers use a number of techniques for ruling out alternative
causes, including before and after tests, before and after tests with some form of
control group, and multiple regression analysis. These tests follow from scientific
logic and simply tell researchers how probable it is that the strategy actually
worked. But because these tests of effectiveness deal in probabilities rather than in
definitive answers, evaluation results are often hotly debated among researchers.
In this section, we discuss the constructive confrontation strategy and some of
the more generally used counseling strategies as well as the relevant research on
their effectiveness. Appendixes A and B provide more detail on these subjects.
Constructive Confrontation
The constructive confrontation strategy evolved as a technique for identifying
employed alcoholics and for counteracting the psychodynamics of alcoholism-
guilt, denial, rationalization, and manipulation (Donovan et al.,1977; Kellerman,
1970; Paredes, 1974; Pennoch and Poudrier, 1978; Trice, 1962a; Trice and
Roman, 1978). Most observers agree that unless these psychodynamics of denial
are overcome the likelihood of recovery from alcoholism is low and that the job-
performance standard of the constructive confrontation strategy offers one of the
best vehicles for attacking denial (Trice and Sonnenstuhl, 1990c). Because
alcoholism is a progressive disorder, it is difficult to distinguish in its early stages
from social and problem drinking. This difficulty is compounded by the conflicting
norms that surround drinking behavior in the United States. For example, some
groups believe that any use of alcohol is sinful; some believe that three or four
drinks a day is "normal11; still others believe that three or four drinks is a sign of
incipient alcoholism. In addition, alcoholism is characterized by denial. When
faced with evidence of their disruptive behavior, alcoholics deny that there is
anything wrong with their drinking behavior and always have a good excuse for it.
They have family problems; they were celebrating some occasion; they were carried
away, but it won't happen again; they became involved with the wrong crowd.
Alcoholics also manipulate the ambiguity surrounding drinking norms and exploit
stereotypes of alcoholics as skid-row bums. After all, they quickly point out, "I
really do not drink any more than everyone else. Besides, how could I have a
problem? I work like everyone else!" Other emotional and physical disorders also
are characterized by these psychodynamics (Schur, 1979), but they are particularly
pronounced in highly stigmatized health problems such as alcoholism, drug
addiction, and the psychoses. As a consequence, alcoholics and severely disturbed
people are exceptionally difficult to help.
Constructive confrontation solves the problem of identifying alcoholic
employees by adopting a pragmatic definition of alcoholism that is based on job
performance. Normal drinking does not unduly alter behavior and does not interfere
with effective and efficient work performance. Problem drinking both exceeds the
bounds of community definitions of appropriate behavior and impairs job

28
performance. Alcoholism is the physiological loss of control over drinking,
generally accompanied by the employee's inability to maintain acceptable levels of
job performance. These definitions assume that the employees who are merely
abusing alcohol can be motivated to change their behavior and those who have lost
control of their drinking will be motivated to seek treatment.
The constructive confrontation strategy is based on both academic and applied
research and basic industrial relations practices that suggest that most people can be
motivated to change if they receive appropriate feedback about their behavior.
Studies of Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, demonstrate that problem drinkers
who join AA have experienced intense reactions to their behavior from families,
friends, and employers, which made it difficult for the drinkers to continue their
denial. Other studies of AA (for example, Maxwell, 1960) and supervisors'
reactions to alcoholics suggest that problem drinking begins to affect job
performance adversely during the middle stages of the disease. Still other research
illustrates that many problem drinkers mature out of their disruptive behavior and
do not become alcoholics (Cahalan and Room, 1974; Clark and Cahalan, 1976;
Plant, 1979).
These findings from alcoholism studies parallel those from other studies. For
example, many people seek psychiatric treatment only after experiencing prolonged
and intense reactions to their bizarre behavior (Horwitz, 1977; Yarrow et al.,
1955). And many people who might otherwise become delinquents, embezzlers, or
marihuana smokers do not do so because the people around them do not
support-and often actively discourage-such behaviors (Cohen, 1966; Cressey,
1953; Becker, 1973). In turn, these alcoholism and sociological findings
complement the industrial relations practice of corrective discipline in which
supervisors react to employees' unacceptable performance with progressively
harsher sanctions (see Bacharach and Lawler, 1981; Black, 1970). Progressive
discipline is designed to induce problem employees to conform to accepted
performance standards and to discourage other employees from deviating from
those standards, but such discipline usually is not imposed until job performance is
seriously impaired. Research by Trice (1965) and others, however, has found that
supervisors are aware of the unsatisfactory performance of neurotic and psychotic
employees long before that stage.
For constructive confrontation to be effective, a supervisor may need to hold a
number of discussions with an employee whose performance is unacceptable. In
the confrontational part of the initial discussion, the employee is given the specifics
of unacceptable work performance and warned that continued unacceptable
performance is likely to lead to formal discipline. In the constructive part,
supervisors remind employees that practical assistance is available through the
EAP. Subsequent steps in the process depend on the response of the employee. If
performance improves, nothing happens; if unacceptable performance continues,
several more informal discussions may follow.
The constructive part of the informal discussions (1) expresses emotional
support and group concern about the employee's welfare, (2) emphasizes that
employment can be maintained if the employee performs better in the future, and (3)
suggests an alternative course of behaviors that the employee can take to regain

29
satisfactory work performance. The confrontational part of such discussions (1)
reiterates expectations of work performance, (2) reminds the employee that he or
she is not fulfilling these expectations and that formal sanctions will follow if
expectations continue to be violated, and (3) establishes some distance between the
employee and other employees who are meeting expectations, thus setting the stage
for further sanctions if needed.
Eventually, if the employee's performance still does not improve, a
supplementary tactic called crisis precipitation is added. At this stage the employee
is formally disciplined for continued poor performance-initially with a written
warning, then with a series of increasingly long temporary suspensions, and finally
with discharge. At all times up until discharge the employee is free to choose to go
to the EAP for help.
Controversy exists about whether supervisors will use the constructive
confrontation strategy. Donald A. Phillips et al. (1980) claim that troubled
employees beget troubled supervisors who must be counseled before they will use
the strategy. This concept has been incorporated into the writings of other EAP
practitioners (see, for example, Feinstein and Brown, 1982; Masi, 1982; Presnall,
1981). Empirical research, however, suggests that whether or not supervisors will
use constructive confrontation is associated primarily with age and experience.
Beyer and Trice (1978) as well as Googins and Kurtz (1981) have found that
young, inexperienced supervisors are less likely than older, experienced ones to use
it. Other research indicates that training programs that teach supervisors how to use
constructive confrontation as a general technique for managing marginal performers
increases familiarity with the policy and integrates supervisors into the formal and
informal networks of the organization, thus increasing the likelihood that they will
use the strategy (Belasco and Trice, 1969; Googins and Kurtz, 1979).
Likewise, a recent study by Sonnenstuhl and Trice (1989; see also Sonnenstuhl,
Trice, and Hathaway, 1990) found that relatively few supervisors are worried about
using the strategy with alcoholic or other troubled employees. Troubled supervisors
are young and inexperienced, occupy the lower rungs of the managerial ladder, and
believe that their own career advancement does not depend upon their coaching
employees to improve performance. In addition, being unfamiliar with the strategy
generally and lacking any specific training in its use, they implement it too late,
after employees' problems have become well developed and particularly difficult to
manage. Despite the severity of employees' problems, troubled supervisors
consulted few other people, further reinforcing their unfamiliarity with the strategy.
A number of studies on the use of the constructive confrontation model have
been completed since 1960. Each study has some methodological flaws, but when
considered as a whole, the consistency of the findings suggests that the model is
effective. Research by Trice and Beyer (1981) also indicates that the results
obtained in these studies are not due to selection biases. These studies, however,
have evaluated the effectiveness of constructive confrontation in industrial
alcoholism programs rather than in broadly based employee assistance programs.
Appendix A summarizes the studies and their reported findings.

30
Counseling
While constructive confrontation focuses on the work relationship between
supervisors and employees, counseling focuses on the therapeutic relationship
between counselors and employees. The latter focus emerged as a program theme
during the 1970s when trained counselors were becoming employed in EAPs and
naturally bringing with them their own ideas about managing programs and helping
troubled employees. They criticized earlier programs for lacking professional
personnel capable of doing clinical diagnosis, treatment, and referral (Wrich,
1980). In addition, some of them worried that constructive confrontation, by
coercing employees into treatment, would bring counselors into conflict with
professional codes of ethics that require them to be clients1 allies at all times (Shain
and Groeneveld, 1980). Some also argued that unacceptable job performance is a
late sign of employees' troubles and that improved performance does not mean the
underlying causes of problems have been resolved. To manage the ethical dilemma
and promote early identification of personal troubles, counselors encouraged
program emphasis on general educational efforts that would lead employees to refer
themselves to the EAP, where their problems could be professionally diagnosed
and appropriate treatment or referral recommendations made.
The counseling strategy rests on a framework of psychological therapy-or more
precisely a framework of many different psychotherapies. Psychotherapists
generally speak of three basic types of therapy: psychoanalytic or psychodynamic,
behavioral, and humanistic or phenomenological (see, for example, Bellack and
Hersen, 1980; Garfield, 1983; Goldenberg, 1983). These therapies have several
features in common. All are educational processes in which counselors try to teach
a client-who may be either an individual, a family group, or an organization-a
special way of viewing the problem behavior and lessons for changing it. Each
therapy, however, has its own conception of human nature, explanation for
abnormal development, strategy for changing behavior, and expected outcomes.
Each type has its adherents and critics. Many therapists, however, would simply
describe themselves as eclectic-picking and choosing between therapies according
to the needs of particular clients.
No one knows at present to what extent each type of psychotherapy is
represented in EAP counseling. But the influx of professionally trained counselors
into programs and their contributions to the EAP literature suggest that all types are
represented. For example, Manuso (1983) under the tide of Occupational Clinical
Psychology lists a wide range of approaches for treating troubled employees.
Similarly, Masi (1982) describes a variety of cases and treatment alternatives used
by industrial social workers. Whether employees are counseled in-house by the
EAP staff or are referred to out-of-house treatment agencies and practitioners, they
will be brought into contact with psychodynamic, behavioral, and humanistic
psychotherapists. The following brief summary of the differences in these
approaches may be helpful, although it is obviously an oversimplification of what
goes on in the clinical setting.
According to psychodynamic therapists, people progress from childhood to
adulthood through successive stages of psychological development. At each stage,
individuals unconsciously resolve questions about who they are and their

31
relationship to the larger world. Abnormal behaviors reflect unresolved conflicts in
earlier stages of development, and therapy consists of helping patients to resolve
them so that the patients can become psychologically mature.
Psychodynamic therapies are essentially "talking" cures in which therapists open
up patients1 pasts and their unconscious thoughts and feelings to conscious scrutiny
to promote self-understanding and growth. Attaining psychological maturity,
however, may require many years of treatment. Psychodynamic therapies have
been developed by Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Karen Horney, Eric Fromm, and Erik
Erikson, but the best known is Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. Each of these
therapies has its own theory of psychological development and definition of
maturity. Evaluation research of psychodynamic therapies is relatively rare because
many of the concepts are impossible to measure.
Behaviorists reject psychodynamic therapies as being unscientific. According to
them, human nature is not predetermined but a product of social learning; that is,
people learn how to behave from others, and they behave in ways that are
rewarded. As a consequence, behavioral disorders stem from faulty learning and
therapy consists of teaching clients to extinguish old behavioral patterns and learn
new ones. Behaviorists, unlike psychodynamic therapists, believe that
unconscious conflicts and insights are irrelevant to treatment. They focus on
changing specific behaviors in targeted life situations (such as anxiety when
speaking before an audience), changing faulty thought patterns (such as "no one
likes me"), and teaching people to manage their lives better (such as being more
assertive). Behaviorists have developed a wide range of techniques for teaching
people to adopt new behaviors, but the best known of these is biofeedback.
Cognitive-behavioral techniques such as Ellis's rational-emotive therapy and
Meichenbaum's self-instructional training are currently popular with therapists.
Behavioral therapies are relatively short term, usually lasting from several sessions
to a year, and many of them have been rigorously evaluated.
Humanistic therapists reject psychodynamic therapies as too deterministic and
behavioral ones as too simplistic. Humanistic therapy is based on the proposition
that everyone is unique and is able to direct his or her own psychological growth.
People can become whatever they choose, and disordered behavior results from a
lack of self-esteem. Treatment focuses on making people more aware of who they
are, their values, how to accept themselves, and how to fulfill their potential.
Unlike psychodynamic therapies that focus on the past, humanistic therapies focus
on current experiences and feelings to foster psychological growth and self-esteem.
Examples of humanistic approaches are Carl Rogers's person-centered therapy,
Fritz Perls's gestalt therapy, William Glasser's reality therapy, and Janov's primal
therapy. Except for research on person-centered therapy, there are few evaluations
of humanistic psychotherapies.
According to Sol L. Garfield (1983) and William M. Pinsof (1981), therapists
are increasingly pursuing group and family therapies as alternatives to individual
psychotherapies. These approaches may prove to be more effective than individual
therapies because humans, as group members, are highly susceptible to group
forces, especially when brought to bear on a shared problem by a strong leader
operating within a belief system shared by the group. According to Horwitz

32
(1982), throughout most of the world, treatment for mental illness is conducted
within some form of group. EAP counselors are beginning to explore the use of
such techniques in their programs (see, for example, deLara, 1988). While the
logic is compelling, the methodological problems in evaluating group and family
therapies are difficult to overcome (Gurman and Kniskern, 1981). Thus, we are left
with much to learn about these promising approaches.

So far we have found no evaluation studies of the effectiveness of the counseling

strategy used generally in EAPs, which is understandable for a variety of reasons.
Evaluation research is both time consuming and expensive, EAP therapists
generally are oriented to treatment more than to research, and the issue of
confidentiality has made it difficult for outside researchers to evaluate programs.
EAP counseling, however, is the same as the psychotherapy received by employees
in a mental health center or a private practice; therefore, its effectiveness may be
understood by examining some of the many studies of psychotherapy outcomes.
Appendix B summarizes some of the evaluations of outcome research that have led
to conflicting conclusions in some instances and, thus, to debate within the
psychotherapy community itself.

What can one make of the conflicting conclusions about the effectiveness of
various psychotherapies, and what do they mean for EAPs? Several observations
seem warranted. First, spontaneous remissions do occur, and two-thirds of most
neuroses can be expected to remit within two years of onset. Indeed, the findings
of a well-regarded psychotherapy study by R.B. Sloane et al. (1975) at the Harvard
Medical School suggest that 77 percent of employees with moderately severe
neuroses can be expected to recover or improve within four months with or without
treatment. Second, psychotherapy outcome research, especially for psychodynamic
and humanistic approaches, is still in its infancy. Until better outcome data are
available, individual EAP counselors undoubtedly will continue to deliver their own
brand of counseling to employees. By remaining flexible and observing what
works and what does not, they will develop a body of EAP counseling experiences
and literature. Finally, it is possible that the form of psychotherapy is less important
than the motivation of the employee, since psychotherapy outcome studies
consistently demonstrate that highly motivated clients do better in treatment than
less motivated ones.
The Case for Balance

As the discussion thus far indicates, many questions about constructive

confrontation and counseling remain unanswered. Research by Trice and Beyer
(1984b), however, suggests that programs maintaining a balance between
constructive confrontation and counseling can expect to have better outcomes than
those that do not. Constructive confrontation motivates employees to change their
behavior, and counseling provides one means of doing so. The Trice and Beyer
study, however, presents even stronger evidence concerning those factors in the
constructive confrontation strategy that predicted acceptance or rejection of help and
improvement or decrement in job performance.

Their research to evaluate the contributions of constructive confrontation and

counseling to improving job performance was conducted in a major corporation

33
 employing more than 120,000 people in more than 50 facilities throughout the
United States. The company had had an alcoholism program since 1962, and in
1980 data were collected from a sustained random sample of 474 supervisors in 19
sample locations. In each facility, data were collected from two samples of
supervisors. Sample A (n=153) consisted of one-half of all supervisors who had
had a subordinate with a drinking problem and had referred that employee to the
company alcoholism program within three years prior to the study. Sample B
(n=321) consisted of one-tenth of all supervisors at each location, and they were
interviewed about how they had managed an employee who presented some
difficult behavior problem other than alcoholism during the same three-year period.
In face-to-face interviews, the researchers collected information on the employee's
job performance at the time the manager first realized that the employee had a
serious problem (Time 1); a measure of the employee's performance at the time of
the interview (Time 2); and information about what each manager said in
discussions with the employee, who was present at those discussions, what formal
discipline was taken with the employee, and the outcomes of the constructive
confrontation discussion. These data were analyzed by multiple regression. The
following questions and their answers highlight some of the findings in the study.
What factors predicted that problem drinkers would accept or
reject help? What supervisors said and how often they said it to problem
drinkers predicted whether problem drinkers would accept or reject help from the
program. Although supervisors used both constructive topics (for example,
availability of services) and confrontative topics (for example, possible disciplinary
actions), the constructive topics accounted for the problem drinkers accepting help,
and the more often supervisors constructively confronted them, the more likely
problem drinkers were to accept help. When supervisors used primarily
confrontative topics, problem drinkers were likely to refuse treatment or leave the
company. Who was present during the first discussion also appeared to affect
whether problem drinkers accepted or refused help. When employees' immediate
supervisors were absent and the supervisors' bosses were present, employees were
apt to refuse help. When medical department representatives were present,
employees were less likely to refuse help and more likely to accept treatment, but
they were also more likely to take early retirement or medical disability. When EAP
coordinators were present, employees were also likely to leave the company.
What factors predicted whether problem drinkers would improve
their job performance? At the time of the interview, supervisors indicated that
based on "traditional" performance criteria, 69.8 percent of the problem drinkers
improved their performance, another 9.3 percent improved with relapses, another
16.7 percent did not appear to change, and 4.2 percent seemed to deteriorate. A
second measure of job performance was calculated using the "best-worst"
technique, which asks supervisors to compare the performance of the alcoholic or
troubled employee with the performance of their best and worst employees (see
Beyer and Trice, 1984b, for a more detailed discussion). Using such comparisons
for the time the supervisor first realized the employee had a problem and at the time
of the interview, 75 percent were considered to have improved their performance,
11 percent remained the same, and 14 percent had gotten worse.
Four factors were related to improved performance, and four factors were related

34
to unimproved performance. Problem drinkers who had a somewhat higher
performance rating than other problem drinkers, who were older, who experienced
more confrontative topics in discussions, and who accepted treatment were more
likely to improve their job performance than those who did not have these
characteristics and experiences. Problem drinkers were unlikely to improve their
performance if the EAP coordinator was present at the first discussion, if they had
already opted to leave the company, if they had received a written warning, or if
they had been suspended from work without pay.

What factors predicted whether other troubled employees would

accept or reject help from the EAP? Supervisors described managing
employees with family problems (60 percent), general emotional disturbances (45
percent), legal problems (11 percent), drug-related problems (9 percent), and other
problems (16 percent). As indicated by the percentages, some of these employees
had more than one problem. Factors similar to those for problem drinkers predicted
whether these employees would accept or reject help. Again, the kind and number
of discussions were good predictors of accepting help. In these discussions, it was
the supervisors' use of many constructive topics that prompted the employees to
accept help. Troubled employees who refused help generally had very low
performance ratings at Time 1 and had experienced more confrontative discussions
with their supervisors in the presence of the supervisors' bosses.
What factors predicted improvement in the job performance of
troubled employees? At the time of the interview, supervisors indicated that 46
percent of the troubled employees improved their performance and 15 percent
improved with relapses. The best-worst technique indicated that 55 percent had
improved. Two factors were related to improved job performance, and four were
related to unimproved performance. Employees whose job performance was high
when their supervisors confronted them and whose supervisors had used more
constructive topics in these discussions were likely to improve their job
performance. Those problem employees who were young, refused assistance, or
were formally disciplined were unlikely to improve.
The findings from this study have important implications for EAPs. First, they
indicate that balanced programs are effective in helping alcoholic and other troubled
employees to improve job performance. Seventy-five percent of problem drinkers
and 55 percent of other troubled employees showed a marked improvement in their
performance. Second, a balance of constructive and confrontative topics in
discussions is the best predictor of problem drinkers accepting assistance and
improving performance. Confrontative topics alone have an impact on problem
drinkers improving their job performance, but the greatest improvement occurs
when problem drinkers accept treatment as well. This suggests that confrontative
topics are important in breaking down alcoholics' denial systems and that
constructive topics have an indirect effect on their performance by encouraging
them to accept treatment. In dealing with alcoholic employees, it is important to be
confrontative and yet remain constructive.
On the other hand, constructive topics alone have an impact on improving the job
performance of other problem employees. Although this study does not show that

35
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 De Javotte, jamais il n’est question entre nous et, précisément,
l’application qu’il met à ne pas prononcer son nom le signale mieux
qu’une confidence.
J’ai envie de lui dire : « Tu exagères… Ne vois-tu pas que tu
découvres ton aventure par ta maladresse à la dissimuler ? Ta
discrétion excessive est une indiscrétion, car le silence est parfois
plus révélateur que la parole. »
Je me contente de sourire. Il se sent deviné et ne s’en affecte
pas. Il a fait son devoir de galant homme et n’a rien à se reprocher.
On se met à table. La joie qu’il contient veut se répandre, se
dépenser. Il taquine Olive :
— Olive, qu’est-ce que tu as fait aujourd’hui ? Raconte un peu…
Elle répond avec un regard agressif et un petit sourire fourbe :
— C’est à vous plutôt qu’il faudrait demander ça…

En ce moment, il est cinq heures ; le soir vient. Un jeune chat de

velours blanc et noir, qu’Olive m’a donné, miaule pour sortir de ma
chambre ; et comme ma mère, sur le balcon, ne l’entend pas, grimpé
sur la toilette qui est près de la porte, il tente, d’une patte incertaine,
d’en atteindre le bouton, car il a remarqué que c’est là le secret qui
donne la liberté.
Mlle Javotte passe. J’entends sa voix chaude qui demande :
— Comment va M. Gilbert ?
— Comme tous les jours, il n’y a pas grand changement.
La voix chaude et grave se récrie :
— Comment, ça ne va pas mieux ! L’air de Val-Roland est si pur,
si doux ! il faut le distraire, ce malade. Il faut le distraire !
Et moi, au fond de ma chambre, j’éprouve une sorte d’irritation
contre moi-même. N’ai-je pas tort, vraiment, de ne pas aller mieux ?
Les autres malades, par leurs progrès, récompensent de leurs soins
ceux qui les aiment. Mais moi ! Il n’y a rien à tirer de moi. Je suis le
mauvais élève qui lasse ses maîtres et qu’on abandonne à lui-
même, là-haut, tout au bout de la classe. J’ai l’âme humiliée et
découragée d’un cancre.
Ma mère m’a rejoint. Elle a délivré le chat. Elle me demande :
— Tu es bien ? Tu n’as pas froid ? Il fait meilleur dehors que
dedans.
Elle a pris un menu ouvrage. Nous demeurons un moment sans
paroles. L’approche du soir endort peu à peu nos pensées. Ainsi se
passent mes journées monotones, mes journées longues et
désœuvrées de malade. Étendu sur ma chaise longue ou couché
dans mon lit, je vois couler des heures qui ne m’apportent rien. Mes
seuls événements sont les bruits familiers que j’attends, que je
reconnais, qui me sont une douce habitude. C’est le pas de ma
mère, le matin, quand elle se lève et que je la suis, au delà du
couloir qui nous sépare. Je sais qu’ici, elle passe un peignoir, que là,
elle prend ses épingles pour ramasser à la hâte ses cheveux. Voici
que sa main tourne le bouton de ma porte et qu’elle vient s’informer
avec son visage inquiet et si tendre de la façon dont j’ai passé la
nuit. Pas de Paul, qui se hâte vers un rendez-vous, qui remonte
chercher un objet. Bruits de la maison, bruits du village, bruits sous
la fenêtre. Trompette du boulanger, son étouffé, par du papier, d’une
pièce de monnaie qu’on jette à un pauvre sur la route, bruit élastique
et flasque d’une pierre qu’un gamin lance dans la rivière. Bruits
familiers, chers bruits qui suscitez tant de mouvements dans mon
âme attentive, depuis la mélancolie songeuse où me plonge le cri
rouillé des contrevents qu’on ouvre au soleil, dans la maison voisine,
jusqu’au chant du pâtre qu’amplifie l’écho de la montagne, à l’heure
d’ombre où les voitures de Biarritz s’en retournent et jettent une
lueur tournante au plafond de ma chambre !…
Heure d’ombre où nous venons d’entrer insensiblement et qui
enfante autour de nous tout un petit monde mystérieux. La fenêtre
ouverte donne l’impression d’une oreille qui écoute, tandis que, par
la porte que ma mère a laissée entre-bâillée, la lampe de l’escalier
envoie dans la chambre un rayon qui hésite comme un regard
indiscret.
 A ce moment, m’étant tourné vers ma mère, je vois remuer ses
lèvres.
— Tu pries ?
Elle me fait un signe de tête affirmatif sans s’interrompre. Mais
comme j’ajoute :
— Crois-tu que ta prière parvienne à son adresse ?
— Écoute, me dit-elle ; tu me dis là une chose que j’ai entendue
bien des fois au début de mon mariage, quand la malheureuse
guerre allemande me sépara de ton père. Il était à l’armée de
Chanzy, sans nouvelles de moi qui étais restée dans Paris investi.
Les lettres des Parisiens partaient chaque semaine au moyen de
ballons qui passaient au-dessus des lignes prussiennes. Chaque
fois que je voulais écrire, il y avait là quelqu’un qui me disait à peu
près ce que tu me dis aujourd’hui : « Est-ce que vous croyez que les
lettres parviennent à leur destinataire ? » Eh bien ! quand, la guerre
finie, je revis ton père, il me gronda : « Pourquoi ne m’as-tu pas
écrit ? J’avais un camarade qui recevait régulièrement des nouvelles
de sa femme ; et moi, rien. » Alors, j’ai bien regretté d’avoir écouté
les conseils de ceux qui veulent tout savoir. Vois-tu, les prières, c’est
un peu comme les lettres qu’au temps du siège on confiait au ciel.
Qui peut dire si elles ne parviennent pas à leur adresse ?
Je n’ai rien répondu. Que pourrais-je répondre ? Elle se remet à
prier, tandis que le soir, partout, dilate le silence. C’est l’instant où un
peu de rêve pénètre sous tous les fronts. Il ne fait pas encore nuit.
Une lueur cendrée règne sur le village. Attirée par elle, je me suis
levé pour venir m’accouder au balcon.
Qu’à l’aide de ces faibles mots qui se sont refroidis en touchant
le papier, on regarde avec moi le tiède soir tomber sur Val-Roland.
Ce n’est plus le bref crépuscule de Davos où se respire je ne sais
quel austère devoir. Ici, la vie est molle et voluptueuse, comme sous
un ciel toscan, et morne comme elle doit l’être à Pise. Mais ce qui la
sauve de toute fadeur, ce sont mille caprices du climat,
l’étourdissante féerie de ses vents de sud qui changent jusqu’à
l’éclairage du soleil, ses bourrasques vite évanouies, quelque chose
de sournois, de violent, une démence endormie qui se réveille
parfois. Et ces montagnes brunes et velues, d’un aspect dur et
volontaire, que l’heure emplit d’une sombre méditation, empêchent
qu’on imagine un paysage plus lyrique et plus fatal.
Car la lumière, le silence, la torpeur, le sommeil de ce pays ne
sont que les accents secondaires de sa physionomie. Sous son
apparence la plus paisible, une ardeur sourde se dissimule, un feu
intérieur couve et, dans ses veines chaudes, circule un peu
d’Espagne, un peu d’Afrique. La main qui a mélangé les éléments de
sa beauté l’a voulue pleine de contrastes. D’où ce charme étrange
qui a sur quelques âmes une action si puissante. Ainsi, depuis que
ce sol m’est familier, dans la plus belle saison, aux heures les plus
éclatantes et les plus lumineuses, c’est avec un sentiment poétique
et grave que j’ai, bien des fois, retrouvé sur le velours de la plus
chatoyante prairie comme un peu de soir et d’automne qui persiste,
qui plane et que l’été ne parvient jamais à dissiper, quelque chose
de fané, de terni, une infortune si noble, un appel d’une tristesse si
intense que quiconque en a été remué l’emporte dans sa mémoire
pour, de loin, quand il l’évoquera, en tressaillir encore. Au creux des
montagnes, au fond des vallées, dans la moindre dépression de
terrain, je ne sais quelle ombre s’allonge, funèbre, que je n’ai pas
vue ailleurs, une ombre qui fait irrésistiblement songer au destin et
au tombeau.
Et ici, ce soir, autour de moi, dans Val-Roland qui s’assoupit,
voici bien la part de cimetière qui me convient, l’atmosphère de pitié
tendre la plus propre à m’adoucir l’angoisse de l’adieu. On sent,
dans l’air, quelque chose d’analogue au poignant renoncement du
médecin qui, lorsqu’un malade est perdu, conseille qu’on ne lui
refuse plus rien.
La nuit descend avec une calme solennité. Une voix, dans une
ferme lointaine, appelle : « Dominica ! » d’une façon prolongée et
inquiète, comme si celle qu’on appelle était perdue. La voix se tait, et
l’on n’entend plus rien que les faibles bruits d’une petite fille qui
chantonne dans l’ombre et d’un chien qui boit dans un seau oublié.
Alors, pour ennoblir le soir, une cloche, lentement, se met à tinter.
 XI
SUR LA MORT

Le docteur qui me soigne depuis mon arrivée à Val-Roland est

venu aujourd’hui et, tout en m’auscultant, il m’a demandé :
— Vous ne toussez pas davantage ?
— Je ne tousse jamais, docteur.
— Vous ne vous sentez pas plus faible ?
Pourquoi cette question ? Me trouvait-il plus mal ? Ma mère l’a
suivi pour l’interroger, quand il est parti ; mais il s’était repris, sans
doute, car il l’a consolée par des mensonges charitables.
Maintenant, dans ma chambre, après le dîner, elle me regarde
remonter ma montre, et prononce en hochant plusieurs fois la tête
avec un découragement infini :
— Tu veux donc me quitter ? Tu veux donc me quitter ?
— Mais non. Pourquoi dis-tu cela ?… Pourquoi y penses-tu ?…
C’est à cause de cette parole malheureuse du docteur… Mais ça ne
signifie rien… C’est une question machinale qu’il pose à tous ses
malades.
Elle me regarde avec ferveur, avec une grande force d’amour ; et
elle répète frémissante :
— Ne me quitte pas… Ne me quitte pas…
 — Mais je ne veux pas te quitter ! Où prends-tu que je sois plus
mal ? Je veux guérir. Je veux te faire une vieillesse heureuse ; voilà
ce que je veux.
Toutes les paroles qu’on dit en cette circonstance, je les
prononce sans y croire. Et elle reprend avec résolution :
— Ne pensons plus à cela. N’y pensons plus.
N’y plus penser ! ne plus penser à la mort, quand sans cesse elle
est là, présente entre nous ! C’est ma plus sûre compagne de tous
les jours. Dès que je m’éveille le matin, elle est là, dans ma
chambre, assise, qui me regarde. Au delà de cette porte, je la trouve
qui m’attend patiemment pour m’accompagner. C’est elle qui fait
mes jambes faibles et mon pouls plus rapide, dès que je veux
risquer quelques pas. C’est d’elle que me viennent ces chaleurs de
fièvre, ces yeux qui me brûlent, ces paupières fatiguées, ce besoin
de m’asseoir et de m’étendre après le moindre effort. Si je m’anime,
si je pense un peu trop, par mille signes avant-coureurs, elle
m’annonce la congestion. Si je me tiens tranquille, encore trouve-t-
elle le moyen de me dérober, chaque nuit, quelques heures de
sommeil. Parfois, il m’arrive de l’oublier un instant. Soudain, je sens
mon cœur lâche, envahi d’une angoisse insoutenable. Je me dis :
« Qu’est-ce que j’ai donc ? » Je suis une seconde sans comprendre.
Et puis, tout de suite, l’affreuse certitude :
— Ah ! oui, c’est cela, c’est cela, je vais mourir !
Brefs instants de répit où tout concourt à vous cacher la mort ; un
fortuit bien-être, le charme d’une causerie, la douceur d’un soir, un
beau rêve. Mais, aussitôt, ce concours bienveillant des choses est
détruit. « Quoi donc ? » Et toujours la pensée atroce qui revient :
— Ah ! oui, c’est cela, c’est cela. Je vais mourir !
Et si j’essaie d’en prendre mon parti, comme je l’ai fait aux
heures où la vie me parut injuste, si j’essaie par un mouvement
d’épaules de m’alléger de ce poids qui m’oppresse, si je me dis :
« Eh bien ! soit, acceptons le sort », je suis tout surpris de ne pas
sentir en moi la lueur de cette suprême espérance qui s’éveille
toujours au cœur des hommes, même quand ils désespèrent de
tout. A mes instants passés d’angoisse, d’épreuve, d’affliction, je
songeais malgré moi : « Ne te désole pas tant, ça s’arrangera, tout
s’arrange. » Mais cette fois, ce n’est plus dans mon sentiment de
justice, dans mon orgueil, mon ambition ou ma tendresse que je suis
atteint. Il ne s’agit plus d’un malheur qui se peut oublier, ou d’un
accident qui se répare. Cette fois, je n’ai plus aucune compensation
à attendre ; il ne dépend plus de moi, de mon courage, de ma
volonté, de me tirer d’affaire. C’est le flambeau lui-même de la vie
qui est en jeu et qui vacille. Cette fois, cela ne s’arrangera plus. Et je
ne parviens pas à concevoir cela, car la mort, plus on y songe, est
inconcevable à un cerveau de trente ans.
Parfois, la nuit, quand je ne dors pas, j’évoque le fatal moment et
son lendemain. Je vois dans la maison les gens qui sont venus,
j’entends les sanglots de ma mère, à qui Paul, un peu pâle, tient les
mains sans rien dire. Avec le fil détaché d’un bouquet, le chat joue,
inconscient, dans la salle à manger, où traînent sur la table des
lettres, des télégrammes d’amis que la distance empêchait de venir.
On piétine, on chuchote. Puis c’est le départ. Six hommes me
portent à bras, comme c’est la coutume ici, dans le petit cimetière
basque où mon désir est maintenant de reposer, à l’ombre d’une
simple croix de bois. Une voix grave, que j’ai quelquefois entendue
sous ma fenêtre et qui m’émouvait tant, psalmodie la phrase
liturgique qui accompagne les morts, avec des intervalles de silence
où résonne le bruit des pas. L’église, l’office et c’est fini ; le cercueil
est dans la terre ; les gens s’en vont. Alors j’éprouve une envie de
pleurer, assurément absurde et très enfantine, parce que ma mère
s’en ira, elle aussi, et que je resterai seul.
D’autres fois, la nuit, quand il pleut, je songe que, lorsque je serai
là-bas, il pleuvra ainsi sur ces membres que je touche, sur mon
pauvre corps décomposé. J’entends battre la vieille horloge qui est
dans l’escalier, et cela me rend plus sensible le grand silence de la
maison. Je vis ! Comme la chaleur du lit me semble douce ! Je
voudrais dire à la mort : « Ne viens pas. Attends un peu. Laisse-moi
goûter encore la tiédeur de ce lit. »
 En somme, c’est cette pensée continuelle de ma fin prochaine
qui me fait apprécier cette existence si vide, si monotone, si
misérable. Elle donne un prix inestimable à mes minutes, de la
saveur à tout ce qui m’entoure. A considérer combien ma vie est
précaire, instable, provisoire, mes désirs prennent un caractère
d’urgence qui m’émeut. Et pour apprécier mieux mes rares joies, je
n’ai qu’à me dire que bientôt je ne verrai plus la féerie du jour, les
roses du jardin, le lézard sur le mur, les saisons qui tour à tour
viennent vêtir et démoder la terre, que bientôt je ne sentirai plus mon
dos glacé et mes tempes moites à lire un beau livre, mon cœur qui
s’élance au son d’une voix aimée, et, selon les heures, mon front se
pencher plein de rêverie au creux de mes mains. Je n’ai qu’à me
dire que je ne connaîtrai plus, que je ne sentirai plus ces choses qui
me sont si précieuses, jusqu’à l’odeur du soleil dans la chambre, la
douce intimité des premières lampes d’octobre, l’engourdissement
qui monte du premier feu de bois ; je n’ai qu’à me dire que je
n’entendrai plus, que je ne percevrai plus le vol des guêpes, ni le
son des cloches, ni le bruit de la pluie sur le toit, ni le tiède vent d’été
qui fait frémir le feuillage, ni le soir sur la montagne, ni le charme des
vieux parcs délaissés, ni les feux du couchant sur la mer.
Or, tous ces présents merveilleux, j’en jouis encore et j’en ai
l’âme dilatée de gratitude. Mais bientôt, dans quelques mois peut-
être, quand mes yeux n’auront plus de regard et me bouche plus de
voix, à quoi m’aura servi d’avoir si fortement aimé la vie ? Bientôt,
quand commencera l’éparpillement de mon être, qu’adviendra-t-il de
tout ce qui était en moi ? Où ira ma tendresse, ce flot intérieur qui,
tant de fois, m’a soulevé jusqu’au délire et que je n’ai pu épuiser ?
Où iront mes bontés cachées, mes ardeurs généreuses, mes beaux
enthousiasmes et toutes les parties profondes de moi-même que
personne n’a connues ?
J’y songe avec un sentiment inexprimable.
Vivre ignoré, passer inaperçu parmi les hommes, c’est presque
une volupté pour qui porte un trésor caché, c’est presque une
volupté d’attendre patiemment son heure comme l’attend, enfermé
dans sa larve grossière, un insecte chargé de toutes les pierreries.
On jouit de son déguisement, on voudrait retarder l’heure où ce
second être qu’on porte dans sa substance fendra son enveloppe
sous les yeux éblouis qui ne surent pas le deviner. Mais se dire :
« Toi qui passes incolore, inconnu, dédaigné, ce que tu contenais,
qui l’aura su ? Cela qui bat en toi et qui va s’arrêter, ce cœur secret,
ce cœur si doux, qui l’aura soupçonné ?… »
 XII
LE CHAPITRE DE L’ÉGLISE

Quand j’écris le mot tristesse, je note le plus haut degré de mon

émotion. La nature ne m’est complètement intelligible, un paysage
ne me devient inoubliable que si un peu de tristesse s’y trouve
répandue. Alors, seulement, je reçois ce petit choc qui ouvre sur ma
sensibilité une porte inconnue et va y éveiller je ne sais quel mal
mystérieux. C’est de cette manière que le soir et l’automne me
remuent si profondément.
Tristesses amies du silence, de quelle solitude du cœur nous
viennent-elles ? De quelles fins en nous de choses que nous ne
ferons plus, de quelles nostalgies, de quels regrets, de quels
désirs ? Comment les comprendre ? quel présage lire en elles ?
Elles sont incompréhensibles comme l’amour, la naissance et la
mort.
Celle que j’éprouve aujourd’hui, indépendamment de la sombre
pensée qui ne me quitte plus, émane sans doute de ce temps
merveilleux. Ma mère vient de partir pour quelques courses à
Bayonne, après le déjeuner. Elle m’a quitté avec ce visage
bouleversé d’émotion qu’elle a chaque fois qu’elle s’absente, même
pour quelques heures, depuis que je suis malade. Son dernier
regard a laissé dans la chambre une trace affectueuse et désolée.
L’après-midi bleue et vermeille est tout à fait extraordinaire en cette
saison. Nous sommes en février et l’air déjà brûlant fait éclore les
insectes de l’été. Il tombe tant de soleil sur le petit carrefour que les
yeux n’en peuvent supporter l’éclat. Il semble s’accumuler là par
couches insensibles et plus éblouissantes d’heure en heure.
Personne ne passe. Une bonne, à l’ombre de la maison qui me fait
face, promène, dans une petite voiture, un enfant qui dort, et le
gravier du jardin rend, sous les roues qui le foulent, un son léger et
continu d’écrasement assez semblable à celui du café que l’on
moud. Cela est berceur, monotone et porte à la rêverie. Un souffle
tiède agite légèrement le tablier de la bonne, et je crois déjà
entendre, aux ormes de l’allée, le bruissement soyeux de leur
feuillage prochain.
— Quel temps divin ! me dit Paul qui vient d’entrer.
Il est en costume de touriste, coiffé du béret basque, prêt à sortir.
Il m’engage à le suivre, à faire quelques pas.
— Essaie. Cela ne peut pas te faire de mal. Allons, fais un effort ;
viens avec moi jusqu’au bout de l’allée.
Je renonce, avec lassitude.
— Tu as tort… Cela ne peut pas te faire de mal…
Pendant qu’il me parle, il est visiblement préoccupé par un pli
que son vêtement neuf forme entre deux boutons.
— Non ? tu ne viens pas ? Décidément non ? Alors tu es pour ta
vie sur ta chaise longue ? C’est insensé…
Il a passé la porte qu’il me crie encore :
— C’est insensé !…
De la fenêtre, je le vois partir, hésiter entre deux directions, sous
l’œil de la bonne qui, dans le jardin d’en face, l’observe, puis prendre
brusquement son parti et descendre vers la Nive.
Il est parti, et je regrette de n’avoir pas fait quelques pas avec lui.
Pourquoi, en effet, ne pas essayer ?
Je suis descendu. Le bois nerveux de la porte craque de chaleur.
Le chat engourdi sur le seuil lève sur moi, sans hâte, des yeux de
prophète absorbé. Il y a deux mois que je ne suis sorti. Le plein jour
du dehors tombe comme une douche tiède sur mes épaules et
m’étourdit un peu. L’allée silencieuse est bien le prolongement d’une
chambre de malade. Chaque fois que je la contemple, je retrouve
cette impression. Il y a entre ma vie blessée et la splendeur morne
de ce lieu une harmonie profonde qui me fait tressaillir.
J’ai pris machinalement le chemin opposé à celui qu’a pris Paul.
Le tapis gris de la poussière craque sous le pied. J’ai perdu
l’habitude de marcher et je m’observe un peu. Voici, adossés à leur
petit mur, les désœuvrés du village, immuables à cette place. Ils me
regardent. Je devine qu’ils disent :
— Tiens, c’est le malade qui loge à Martinenia. On ne le voit pas
souvent.
— Il a l’air jeune, le pauvre !
Je les ai dépassés. Je sens leur curiosité me suivre. Je la sens
physiquement sur moi, comme une main qui me toucherait entre les
deux épaules. Cela m’impose un redressement du buste, un air
faussement dégagé, un dandinement maniéré qui trahit l’effort. Je
suis mécontent de moi. Je voudrais tant ne pas paraître malade !
Malades qui passent essoufflés, les yeux fiévreux et si pâles,
jeunes filles qu’on rencontre sur les promenades, étendues dans
une voiture que pousse un domestique, pauvres êtres défaits sur
lesquels on a la cruauté de se retourner et qui vous supplient de ne
pas les regarder, ou bien ceux irrités qui vous bravent, voilà à quel
lamentable troupeau j’appartiens désormais. Je provoque la curiosité
ou, ce qui est pire, la pitié. Ah ! que la pitié est insupportable aux
âmes fières !…
Mes pas m’ont porté, sans but, vers la place de l’église qui forme
une sorte de terrasse naturelle d’où l’on découvre mieux le val pensif
et silencieux. C’est un carré de sol resplendissant, où ne tombe nulle
ombre, si ce n’est celle de mon corps qui s’y fait tiède, précise et
plus vivante que moi. Combien j’aime ce petit cimetière qui m’attend
et dort, si respecté, entre l’église et ses cyprès ! Combien me plaît
cette terrasse solitaire où le soleil lui-même a l’air de s’ennuyer !…
 J’ai poussé une porte dont un côté est vêtu de lumière, l’autre de
pénombre, et je me trouve dans l’église sonore et glacée.
Pénombre qui sent le vieux bois, le cierge et l’eau bénite ! Bruit
de mes pas dans l’impressionnant silence ! Mais qu’est-ce donc qui,
au-dessus de ces rangs de chaises vides, plane dans l’air, entre les
vitraux ? C’est quelque chose que l’âme perçoit et qui est comme de
la prière refroidie.
Je m’avance en évitant de heurter les dalles de mes talons, et je
me demande : « Que suis-je venu chercher ici ? » L’impression que
je reçois est celle que l’on a devant les tombeaux. Cela est plein de
songes graves et confus. Je m’approche d’un pilier dont le bois
dégage une odeur faible et fade et je me répète sans trouver de
réponse : « Que suis-je venu chercher ici ? »
Alors, près de l’autel, une forme agenouillée attire mon attention.
Je ne me trompe pas. Cette robe noire, cette nuque dorée, que
découvre la tête inclinée entre les mains, c’est Javotte. Je souris
involontairement parce que Paul, tout à l’heure, pour dépister la
curiosité de la bonne qui l’observait, a pris brusquement le parti de
descendre vers la Nive. Il a dû s’imposer ainsi un grand détour pour
aboutir ici. Car je ne doute pas qu’ils doivent s’y retrouver. Elle a
feint de ne pas me voir. Elle l’attend. Ils traverseront le petit
cimetière, descendront par les sentiers qui sillonnent le val, où l’on
ne rencontre personne. Il aura contre son visage ce visage
éblouissant. Il entendra son rire qui est unique, les éclats de sa voix
chaude et veloutée. Il subira près d’elle cette sombre incitation à
aimer qui monte continuellement de cette terre des morts. Et moi ?
Qui verra un cœur jeune dans mon corps chancelant ? A quelle
épaule appuierai-je ma tête ? Quelles mains apaiseront mes tempes
ardentes ? A quel suprême rendez-vous verrai-je venir l’amour ?
J’ai retrouvé sur la terrasse solitaire le soleil qui s’ennuie. Je me
sens las d’être resté longtemps debout ; mes jambes se font
pesantes, mon pouls bat avec force. Je dois avoir aux pommettes
cette roseur de fièvre que je redoute. En même temps, je revois
avec un peu de trouble la nuque dorée de Javotte agenouillée.
Allons ! malade, rentre à la maison !…
 XIII
LA VISITE DE JAVOTTE

Je suis rentré depuis cinq minutes quand Olive vient me dire :

— Mlle Javotte est en bas qui vous demande.
— Moi ? Tu ne te trompes pas. Ce n’est pas M. Paul qu’elle a
demandé ?
— Non, elle a bien dit : « M. Gilbert. »
— Tu es sûre ? Alors, fais-la monter.
La surprise, le plaisir, l’agitation que me cause cette visite, je n’ai
pas le temps de les démêler. Javotte est là ; et ses paroles sont plus
inattendues encore que sa visite :
— Enfin, monsieur le très mystérieux, le très défendu,
l’insaisissable, on vous tient !
— Mademoiselle, vous allez me donner de l’orgueil. Dites plutôt
que c’est une charité de venir me voir.
— On ne s’en douterait pas. Vous fuyez le bruit ; vous ne voulez
voir personne. Je crois bien que vous vous prétendez malade pour
avoir un prétexte à vivre en sauvage, si bien qu’on a toujours peur
de vous déranger.
— Allons donc ! Vous savez très bien au contraire… Mais
comment cette bonne idée vous est-elle venue ?
 — Voilà, j’ai rencontré madame votre mère qui allait à la gare. Je
lui ai dit : « Tiens, vous abandonnez votre malade aujourd’hui ? J’ai
bien envie d’aller lui tenir compagnie durant votre absence. » Elle
m’a répandu : « C’est cela. Allez me le distraire. Et tâchez qu’il ne
parle pas trop, qu’il soit raisonnable. » Ah ! les mamans !…
— Mademoiselle Javotte, asseyez-vous près de moi, là, dans ce
fauteuil. La fenêtre ne vous gêne pas ?… Quelle bonne idée vous
avez eue de venir !…
Elle est là et la belle journée s’embellit encore. Elle s’est assise.
Étendu sur ma chaise longue, je la considère en silence. Le soleil,
qui entre dans la chambre, dore sa peau comme la pelure d’un fruit.
Elle se met à rire et son visage s’empourpre légèrement parce que,
sans le vouloir, c’est avec un peu trop d’insistance que je considère
cette peau dorée, que la robe noire découvre en carré sur le cou,
cette peau au grain serré, si chaude, si vivante et qu’on devine
tendue de toutes parts, sans un pli, sur ce corps jeune et cambré. Je
me sens très libre avec elle, heureux de sa présence et, je ne sais
pourquoi, une sorte de gaieté, de griserie joyeuse me rendrait
presque impertinent.
— Alors, en quittant ma mère, qu’avez-vous fait ?
— Je suis venue.
— En passant par l’église.
— Comment le savez-vous ?
— Tout simplement parce que je vous y ai vue.
— Vous êtes allé à l’église, vous ?
— J’ai même cru en vous voyant que vous attendiez quelqu’un.
— Quelqu’un ? Vous m’intriguez. Et peut-on savoir qui ?
— Non, j’en ai déjà trop dit. Ce serait indiscret.
— Oh ! oh ! je vois qu’on vous a parlé de moi, qu’on vous en a dit
du mal ; et vous l’avez cru ?
— Moi, je n’ai rien cru… je plaisantais.
 — Vous voyez, vous hésitez… Eh bien ! je vais répondre pour
vous : Tout à l’heure, comme j’étais dans le vestibule, j’ai entendu
que vous disiez à Olive : « Tu ne te trompes pas, ce n’est pas M.
Paul qu’elle a demandé ? » Vous avez donc cru que j’attendais votre
ami… Oh ! je sais les bruits qui courent ; je suis très libre avec tout le
monde, il en résulte un tas de légendes qui m’amusent ; mais peu
importe ; en ce qui concerne votre ami, je vous le dis tout de suite :
je ne voudrais pas, cela me gênerait qu’il y eût de votre part je ne
sais quelle réserve à mon égard, si par la suite, comme j’en ai
l’espoir, mous devenions de bons amis.
— Vous aimez tant les malades !…
— Ne vous moquez pas de moi. Vous voyez, je vous parle sans
arrière-pensée. Je serai très contente, si je ne vous fatigue pas trop,
de vous apporter de temps en temps une seconde de distraction et
je ne voudrais pas que vous pensiez, quand il vous plaira de
recevoir ma visite, que c’est du temps que je dérobe à votre ami. Si
vous deviez avoir un scrupule quelconque de ce côté, j’en serais
peinée. Je suis très franche. Je n’ai rien à dérober à votre ami. Je
n’appartiens à personne.
— Oh ! je n’ai pas été jusqu’à supposer…
Et je pense : « Pourquoi me dit-elle cela ? »
Elle s’était levée ; elle se rassied après avoir approché de moi
son fauteuil. Les coudes sur ses genoux, le menton dans ses mains,
elle me demande gentiment :
— Dites-moi ce qu’on vous a dit de moi. Cela m’amuse de
savoir !
Je me souviens de tout ce qui est parvenu à mon oreille : qu’on
l’a vue avec Paul sortir d’un fourré, très émue et un peu décoiffée ;
que ses coquetteries ont affolé, il y a deux ans, un jeune musicien
dont la famille a dû intervenir ; qu’on la rencontre, la nuit, déguisée
en homme, allant à quelque rendez-vous secret. Mais s’il fallait
croire tout ce qu’on raconte !…
— Cela vous intéresse donc bien ce qu’on a pu me dire de vous ?
 — Ou plutôt non, je désire savoir ce que vous pensez de moi.
C’est votre opinion que je tiens à connaître. Le reste m’est tout à fait
égal… Pourquoi riez-vous ?
— Parce que vous avez les exigences d’une petite reine habituée
à ce que rien ne lui résiste.
— Voilà ce que c’est !… Il ne m’arrive pas souvent de pouvoir
causer librement avec vous : alors j’en profite.
— Eh bien ! Mademoiselle, je pense que vous vivez ici un peu à
l’étroit, que vous êtes faite pour le plaisir, l’aventure, la conquête. Je
suppose qu’il ne vous est pas indifférent de plaire, que vous voulez
plaire…
— Et puis ?
— Je vous crois vite émue, prompte à vous dévouer, cordiale
avec le premier venu… Il faut tout dire ?
— Allez, allez…
Elle me presse et, en même temps, je sens en moi, plus
pressante encore, cette impulsion taquine, cette griserie joyeuse qui
me porte, sans que je le veuille, à l’impertinence :
— Voilà, vous devez être incapable de rancune…, loyale en
amitié…, infidèle en amour…
— Vous m’arrangez bien !…
— Vous avez un petit cœur traversé par tous les souffles chauds,
qui se gonfle soudain, qui s’emporte, se promet un soir et oublie le
lendemain. Un petit cœur capricieux et désordonné, ardent et
distrait. Vous aimez tout le monde.
— Cela veut dire que je suis inconstante ?
— Il y a trop de soleil en vous. Les pays dorés, les riches climats
donnent le goût du plaisir. Une trop belle journée est l’ennemie du
devoir.
Pendant que je lui parle, j’aperçois dans son visage un peu plus
que de l’intérêt amical. Comment dire ? Est-ce dans ses yeux si
curieux de tout, si hardis et un peu trop éclairés en ce moment ; est-
ce dans sa bouche tentatrice ? Est-ce ici, est-ce là ? En elle, quelque
chose de fortuit, d’entr’ouvert laisse échapper un sentiment
enveloppant et fort comme le désir de me conquérir. Toute son
attitude me dit : « Vous me plaisez. Vous me plaisez. » Je sens cela
avec surprise et certitude.
— Je vois, répond-elle, qu’on vous a beaucoup parlé de moi…
Mais qu’importe tout ce qu’on raconte et que je sois aimable et
même que j’aie été coquette. Voyez-vous, je me suis souvent
comparée à une petite lettre qui contient un peu de joie, un peu de
bonheur et qui se rend à son adresse qu’elle ne connaît pas. La
petite lettre passe entre bien des mains avant de parvenir à son
destinataire. Parfois elle se croit arrivée, parce qu’en route quelqu’un
l’a retenue, un instant, au passage ; mais elle s’aperçoit vite de son
erreur et continue son voyage vers celui à qui elle est destinée. Les
autres ont pu l’interroger, chercher à surprendre son secret, c’est à
lui qu’elle va, c’est à lui seul qu’elle dira, une fois sortie de son
enveloppe : « Voilà, c’était pour vous le bonheur que je contenais. »
Son regard ajoute clairement : « Vous serez celui-là si vous le
voulez. Ne me comprenez-vous pas ? »
Ma raison voudrait me mettre en garde ; sa petite voix me dit :
« Attention ! ne t’y laisse pas prendre. Elle est sincère, elle est pleine
du désir que tu sois celui-là, et demain elle sera pleine du désir que
ce soit un autre. Elle subit l’attraction de quiconque est avec elle
depuis quelques instants. L’amour la possède. C’est une
amoureuse. Ne te laisse pas prendre à son visage d’amoureuse. »
Mais comment écouterais-je ma raison ? C’est Javotte que j’écoute.
Elle m’a pris la main d’une façon naturelle et caressante :
— Vous n’êtes pas trop fatigué ? Si madame votre mère en
rentrant allait vous trouver souffrant ? Elle dirait : « C’est cette petite
Javotte qui t’a mis dans cet état. Il ne faut plus la laisser monter. »
Dites-moi que vous n’êtes pas fatigué, que ma présence vous est
agréable, qu’il vous plaira que je revienne…
Tandis qu’elle me dit ces choses et que sa douce main tient la
mienne, je ne sais quelle lumière monte en moi comme se hausse,
d’un tour de clé, la flamme d’une lampe. Je voudrais être sceptique
et chacune de ses paroles m’ouvre une fenêtre sur le bonheur.
Ce que j’éprouve est si imprévu que j’en suis un peu étourdi. Tout
à l’heure, j’appelais l’amour. Est-ce lui qui est venu ? Dans le chaud
silence de la pièce nous demeurons l’un près de l’autre à nous
regarder, comme deux êtres jeunes dont l’un n’est pas brisé, défait,
malade, perdu.
O vie merveilleuse, pleine de surprises et de féerie, qui me fais
ce dernier présent. Ceci n’est rien, sans doute, que le jeu amusé
d’une coquette ; et je suis coupable de m’y laisser prendre. Pourtant,
je sens que si j’étendais la main, si j’enserrais sa taille, si, d’une
douce pression, j’inclinais sa tête vers la mienne, elle
s’abandonnerait à mon étreinte. Quelque chose me dit : « Embrasse-
la, c’est ce qu’elle désire ; ne la laisse pas partir sans avoir fait ce
geste. Après tu seras malheureux. » Cette idée s’empare de tous les
replis de mon cerveau. Elle s’y répand comme un liquide. Je ne puis
songer à autre chose : « Embrasse-la. Embrasse-la. Embrasse-la
donc. »
J’ai avancé le bras. Elle s’est penchée ; elle m’a dit simplement :
— Mon ami…
Je cherchais sa joue ; c’est sa bouche que j’ai trouvée.
— Oh ! dit-elle, c’est fou !
La chaleur ou l’émotion enflamme son visage. Voilà, ce n’est rien
qu’un baiser qu’elle m’a rendu avec une sorte d’emportement. Se
peut-il que ce n’ait été de sa part qu’un geste banal ? De la mienne,
c’était le suprême élan vers l’amour d’une vie qui va se rompre,
l’absurde, le déraisonnable, l’émouvant appel au bonheur d’un être
sur qui on voit la mort tournoyer déjà comme un vautour.
— Il y a si longtemps que j’étais attirée par vous. Ne l’aviez-vous
pas deviné, quand je venais exprès à l’heure où vous acheviez de
déjeuner, parce que j’étais sûre au moins de vous trouver…
— Comment aurais-je pensé que vous ne veniez pas pour Paul ?
— Ne parlons pas de Paul, parlons de vous.