Live sensorial inquiries & live affective reports: Interpretations explored in Emotional Support Interaction

This paper introduces the term live process reports to describe a recognizable practice where a moment-by-moment verbalization of what is seen, heard, or felt is produced in real time during unfolding interaction. Such utterances (e.g., “do you get a bit affected?”) register emergent sensorial or emotional phenomena and make them available for mutual exploration. The concept draws together and extends insights from noticings (Heritage, 2011), side sequences (Jefferson, 1972), and a wider body of research on online commentary in institutional interaction (Heritage & Stivers, 1999; Mangione-Smith et al., 2003; Maynard, 1992), which shows how speakers project stance, manage affect, and align interpretive trajectories during unfolding activity. This paper analyzes examples—for instance, from an institutional setting of supported living services for people with mental illnesses, where video-mediated emotional support is offered. The paper demonstrates how a professional formulates a live process report in response to subtle signs of client distress. The report not only surfaces the client’s emotional state but also constructs the professional as attentive and attuned—enacting presence as both a moral and affective achievement (Lombard & Ditton, 2006; Nielsen, et al., in review; Stivers, 2008). In this way, live process reports may contribute to relational work by managing vulnerability and building professional accountability—not only through listening but through timely and calibrated verbal displays. This paper connects with EMCA research on both psychotherapy, particularly analyses of therapists’ moment-by-moment responses to clients’ emotional displays (Voutilainen, 2012), and detailed work on how talk mediates emotional disclosure, alignment, and interactional care, as detailed in the volume edited by Peräkylä & Sorjonen (Muntigl & Horvath, 2014; Peräkylä et al., 2012). It contributes studies of social work interactions, where the management of emotional displays and moral precepts is explored (S. Jørgensen, 2019; S. E. Jørgensen, 2024; Flinkfeldt, 2020). It also contributes to broader conversation analytic studies of institutional interaction (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Peräkylä & Vehviläinen, 2003). These studies show how subtle formulations help construct shared experiential ground in high-stakes relational environments (Peräkylä, 2019). References Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (Red.). (1992). Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings. Cambridge University Press. Flinkfeldt, M. (2020). Respecifying ‘worry’: Service and emotion in welfare encounters. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17(3), 372–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1725949 Heritage, J. (2011). Territories of knowledge, territories of experience: Empathic moments in interaction. I T. Stivers, L. Mondada, & J. 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Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730735.001.0001