This article uses an integrative and dynamic model to analyze suffering at work, and its manifestations, experienced by correctional officers in prisons in a particular space known as the "prison visiting room." Such risk factors as stress and burnout have already been extensively considered in the literature, based on factorial approaches. However, it is rare to find existing multidimensional models that allow for an understanding of the complexity and specificity of processes in prison. The constructed model distinguishes between different levels of reading within six axes of detention warders in which professional positioning conflictualization (Moulin, Sevin, 2010) has been identified as likely to develop deadlock (Sami?Ali, 2002) in the exercise of their profession. Professional positioning is viewed in terms of adaptive management, and operationalized on behavioral, axiological and psychic levels. Suffering at work results in the expression and acting out of various psychic and somatic symptoms. From various indicators, the model enables the processes to be identified, along with the steps that lead to the manifestation of suffering at work. It offers opportunities for intervention and prevention for managers and psychologists in charge of supporting the prison staff. The research method draws a comparative analysis through the investigation of professional spaces, including: visiting rooms, places of care, doors, watchtowers, and minor district and passageways. Seventy-two semi-directive research interviews were carried out with detention officers who occupy posts in each of these areas, in three French penitentiaries. The results show that, regardless of the workspace, the institutional framework (Fustier, 1999), seems potentially weakening for the agents because of two main dimensions: the architectural organization of places and the 'paradoxical? missions devolved to the tasks of surveillance. The specificity of the visiting room lies in the introduction of families and close relations as objects of surveillance. This results in the conflictualization of the professional positions on the "spatial" axis because of the overlapping of the public, private and intimate places, the perceived transgressive intrusion into intimacy and the necessity of control in this case. These first elements, combined with the families? perceptions and assessments, and the identification of phenomena, have repercussions on the axis named "legalities-legitimacies," which put at risk the legitimacy of the detention officer in the enforcement of the prison rules. The position of authority is then weakened, with the detention officer not feeling legitimate and authorized to intervene as a third party in relations between the prisoner and his family. If this workspace is confrontational and generates counter attitudes that are perceptible both in terms of the behavioral, axiological plane, and defensive psychological movements, the latter remain adaptive because they do not involve physical or psychic symptoms, nor are they acted out. Various indicators suggest the need for preventive intervention before the adaptive capacities of the detention officers are exceeded.