Category: News Item

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. 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.