Better than therapy: Exploring hedonic joy and its relationship to well-being for unpaid carers in Wales

Lyttleton-Smith, Jen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0704-2970, Burrows, Daniel, Sheehan, Lucy and Jones, Siôn ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2474-6889 2025. Better than therapy: Exploring hedonic joy and its relationship to well-being for unpaid carers in Wales. The British Journal of Social Work , bcaf067. 10.1093/bjsw/bcaf067 Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

The conditions of COVID-19 revealed inadequacies in well-being support for unpaid carers in Wales. We explore qualitative data, generated in 2021, regarding the importance of joy, pleasure, and satisfaction in unpaid carers’ lives; both for carers’ individual well-being and for their relationship with the person cared for. Discussions of activities restricted or prohibited during the pandemic were revealing about the nature and significance of pleasure within caring relationships. We distinguish between hedonia—transient moments of fun, amusement, or sensory pleasure—and eudaimonia—activities that align with and enact a person’s ethical or personal values—to explore what helps to make caring arrangements sustainable. Unlike Aristotle’s conception of hedonia as vulgar and shallow, we recognize that moments of shared joy play an essential role in supporting the dyadic relationship of carer and person cared for, and that moments of enjoyment away from caring can also uphold the carer’s sense of identity. An absence of ‘joy’ in life is therefore likely to be detrimental to carers’ well-being, also creating barriers to eudaimonic well-being. For practice, it is important that strengths-based approaches recognize the importance of hedonic opportunities to support well-being and prevent carer burn-out.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) Research Institutes & Centres > Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE)
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	1468-263X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	27 March 2025
Date of Acceptance:	10 March 2025
Last Modified:	31 Mar 2025 14:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/177205

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