The newly published book Relational Caring and Presence Theory in Health Care and Social Work: A Care-Ethical Perspective addresses a deep and globally felt dissatisfaction, among citizens in general but also among professionals.
In healthcare, the social domain, in education, in the domain of housing, but also in psychiatry, youth care, and, for example, public administration, things have too often gone off course.
Growing gaps
As a result, there is a growing gap between the regime of competent professionals and managers, on the one hand, and the lifeworld of patients, clients, pupils, and residents with their needs, concerns, and longings, on the other. And also a gap between the institutional logic of organisations and their administration and quality systems, on the one hand, and the everyday practice and practical wisdom of front-line professionals, on the other.
In these interrelated gaps, disconnected competences, bureaucracy, aloofness, mismatches, and distrust are proliferating. The relentless improvements since the 1980s hardly repair these deficits because they are producing more of the same. People, both as citizens and as professionals, hardly feel seen. Their distrust toward fellow citizens, their dissatisfaction with their work and their receptivity to populism are growing.
Neoliberal efficiency thinking
Three decades of neoliberal efficiency thinking about caring and care systems have resulted in a greater need for relationality in healthcare and social work than ever before. These support services extend beyond the giving of care and support to include the development of relationships between caregivers and their care recipients in their socio-institutional contexts.
The culmination of over 30 years of research, this book provides an extensive and critical introduction to relational working in care, education and welfare.
It explains what relational work is and proposes a new human-orientated theory beyond the simplex needs provision model. Demonstrating the kind of professionalism required for such work, it explores why it is as important to be present with and for people, especially those in precarious conditions, as it is to give care.
Relational core
This book summarises over 30 years of research into the practices of practitioners who are recognised by care receivers and colleagues as good practitioners, to present a realistic and empirically grounded alternative. At its heart is radical relational caring, connecting with and attuning one’s practice to the other person before applying expert knowledge.
What relational caring entails and how it works has been practically and theoretically explored in different domains and is described in detail. But the book goes further and shows its payoff. It analyses what kind of professionalism is required for this way of working, and how practitioners can be trained and formed to work in increasingly radical, relational ways.
Presence approach
The book presents the practice of relational caring in a broad range of domains – the presence approach – but also the underlying theory, ethics and philosophy – the multidisciplinary presence theory. It pays attention to its foundations – in care ethics – and the methodology, qualitative research and politically oriented critiques on which it relies. To this end, it coins its own concepts, which challenge professionals, managers and researchers to stay on track.
The book elaborates the thesis that no form of care, help, or support can do without this relational core, with the risk that seekers of help feel abandoned. It is precisely this experience of not being included that fuels discontent worldwide. And not being allowed to practise relational caring is conducive to satisfaction fatigue and burnout of professionals.
The elaboration of these themes as presence (theory and approach), is done in close alignment with the political interpretation of ethics of care, in this case with a strong empirical basis and inductive conceptualization. Although most of the qualitative research it relies on, is conducted in the Netherlands, the book is international in scope and relevance.
This is essential reading for researchers, educators, quality officers, policy makers, students and practicioners interested in understanding the growing scholarship related to both care theory and presence theory.
More information on this publication you will find here
as well as an open access Preface and Chapter 9 Opening oneself up and staying open to the other or others, which the authors consider to be the source out of which all of the book has originated.
Online book launch
The intended practices of the book are rooted in good patient observation and interpretation – a central theme of the CERC Conference 2025.
In the online book launch of this publication, organised by the Care Ethics Research Consortium during the CERC Conference 2025, the authors Andries Baart and Guus Timmerman will present some of the core chapters of the book. Maurice Hamington, author of Revolutionary Care: Commitment and Ethos (2024), will respond and kick off the discussion.
Time & Date: January 30-31 2025 8.30-17.00 CET
Online, tickets available here: Register for CERC 2025 Online Conference
Organization: Care Ethics Research Consortium
Website Online Conference
Costs: Registration is required. Tickets are free, but if you would like to support the CERC conference, you have the option to make a small donation during the registration process