Seeing the Person behind the Caregiver: Telling the Story of Family Caregiving and Person-Centred Support

Background: When a person becomes in need of care, their family often serves as the first and potential long-term carer. In Austria, around 10% of the population are engaged in family caregiving, making it the country’s largest care service. Demographic and social changes increase the complexity of family care, placing greater demands on family caregivers (FCs) and affecting their physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing. While recent research reflects a growing recognition of the diversity of caregiving constellations, studies remain largely focused on specific relationships or diseases, relying on typologies and predefined roles. What remains underexplored is the more fundamental question of who the person providing family care is.

Aim: By drawing on Paul Ricoeur’s concept of narrative identity, this dissertation aims to explore how FCs shape and express their sense of self and identity, how personal, social, and cultural narratives interact in this process, and what these insights imply for designing personcentred support.

Method: The study employs a qualitative, multimethod design grounded in Ricoeur’s phenomenological-hermeneutic philosophy. Narrative interviews and collaborative storytelling sessions will provide insight into questions of identity, while co-creative workshops will generate implications for person-centred support. Data analysis will follow Ricoeur’s hermeneutical arc, progressing through naïve reading, structural analysis, and critical interpretation, culminating in a critically appropriated understanding of what it means to be a
family caregiver and of person-centred support.