Orientation to the needs of patients is a major objective of care provision. Christiane Pinkert examines how needs orientation can be achieved in breast cancer patient care, how the process of needs perception takes place, what influences this process and what consequences this has for patient care. Her study clearly shows that needs orientation is coupled to an interactive process between the caregiver and the patient, and that for the caregivers this process is shaped by ambivalences between emotional closeness and distance, continuity and fragmentation, and work pressures and work satisfaction.