Being here with you: An examination of the relational field in dementia care

Underpinning the provision and receipt of care is the involvement of two parties: carer and cared-for. This paper seeks to understand how the National Dementia Strategy constructs the relational field in professional dementia care, and how this writes itself (or not) into the actual realities of daily care practice in a dementia care home. The paper will explore the connections between (i) the ways the needs of those who receive care are constituted in dementia care discourse; (ii) the ideological frames, around policies, said to respond to such needs; and (iii) the incidences of tension between policy and the realities of the embodied and psychic experiences of those involved in dementia care