ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrate how emotionally interconnected partners can be and the value of their being helped to hold on to emotional contact and meaningful interaction with one another, though the movement of the dementia is towards progressive loss of this. For couples, the experience of dementia occurs in the context of a relationship that pre-dates the dementia often by the best part of a lifetime, and the pre-existing quality of the relationship affects how the dementia is experienced. Video approaches have been found to be very powerful in work with parents and children, helping to promote change and new understanding. Having emotional contact with fragmented experience is very difficult, and it is understandable that carers who are themselves less contained may be less able to tolerate emotional contact with the person with dementia. The therapist goes through the video interactions looking at moments of contact between the partners, as well as points of frustration or difficulty.
