Heideggerian phenomenology: an approach to understanding family caring for an older relative

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Abstract
Recent research has found diat family caregivers do not discuss their caregiving in terms of tasks but instead describe their care as shaped by concerns, commitments and goals. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the ways in which nurses approach die family caregiving process and to explore possibilities for evolving nursing knowledge by questioning existing practice in die light of developing insight into die ways in which being a family caregiver is meaningful. A critique of die philosophical orientations of rationalism and empiricism provides a platform to discuss the merits of a Heideggerian phe‐nomenological approach in assisting nurses to better understand family caring experience. Such critique serves to support the notion of displacing die traditional scientific view as die prime means of disclosing trudi, acknowledging alternative ways of knowing.