This book addresses a deep and globally felt dissatisfaction, among citizens in general but also among professionals. Namely, that 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. In short: ‘Many are busy with you, but few are looking after you.’ The relentless improvements since the 1980s hardly repair these deficits because they are producing more of the same: the same pragmatism and distancing, the same type of thinking, perceiving and knowing, the same rationality and market-driven organisation that are at the root of the difficulties. 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.

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. It 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.