Care-as-Worry, or “Don’t Worry, be Happy”

Abstract

Care, or caring, is one of the central concepts in North American health science and nursing theories. Yet, experiential accounts of caring show dimensions of meaning that have received little attention in the literature. The author compares the meanings of the terms care and caring with their counterparts in other languages. He explores the significance of care-as worry embedded in lived relations of caring and relates these concepts to ethical considerations surrounding health care. It is because of this felt “care-as-worry” that the life of care may be experienced as a complex moral-emotional relation of responsibility.