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

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.