ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a way of understanding the interactions between professional caregivers and the people who come to them for help. It examines a series of experiments that explore the role of empathic attunement in effective caregiving. The book also presents ideas based on attachment theory, on research into infant and child development and on extended attachment theory that provide pointers for how adults will seek help when in crisis, frightened or in distress. It explores a theory of careseeking and caregiving in adult life. The dynamics of caregiving and careseeking are those pertaining to the actual interactions taking place between the careseeker and the caregiver. The work of the psycho dynamically trained therapist is to be tuned into the affects and processes and to try to conceptualise their meaning.
