and concern). Caregiving that lacks these two components may be ineffective or even detrimental to the care-recipient's well-being. For example, a study investigating the adjustment of breast cancer patients found that these women varied in the types of the support they desired, and mismatches between the type of support wanted and the type of support received (i.e., low sensitivity to the partner’s unique support needs) predicted worse adjustment. Unhelpful attempts at social support include: minimization (e.g., downplaying or denying the problem), maximization (e.g., catastrophizing, making the problem seem unwieldy or unresolvable), blaming or criticizing the partner for their misfortune, inducing feelings of guilt or indebtedness, and overinvolvement (e.g., being overly protective, making the care-recipient feel incompetent, inserting oneself into the problem when the partner wishes to solve it independently). Invisible support Even well-intentioned support can negatively impact the care recipient's psychological adjustment to stressful events if it is inappropriate or excessive, or inadvertently highlights the fact that the care recipient does not have sufficient skills or resources to handle the stressor by themself. Consequently, Niall Bolger and colleagues have put forward the idea that support is most effective when it is invisible, or operates outside of the care-recipient's direct awareness. To investigate this proposition, the researchers recruited couples in which one member was a law student preparing to undergo a highly stressful event, the New York State Bar Examination, and had both members of the couple complete daily diary entries about given and received emotional support. They found that the law students exhibited heightened levels of depression on days they reported receiving support, but lowered levels of depression on the days when their partners reported providing more support than the law students reported receiving. That is, participants in this study gained most psychological benefits from support they were not explicitly aware of having received. However, other researchers have argued that the responsiveness of enacted support is a more important factor than the visibility of the support. One study examining the effects of visible and invisible support on emotional and relationship well-being showed that visible support was linked to neutral or positive outcomes when it was high in responsiveness, and invisible support was linked to negative outcomes when it was low in responsiveness. That is, visible support is not always negative and invisible support is not always positive, but the effectiveness of both types of support hinges on responsiveness. Secure base