Our Understanding of Mutuality when Reflecting on our Values and Experience of Caring

In this paper we respond to the question: How can we gain a better understanding of our own values and where they come from, and how this has influenced our work together and in our interests in improving outcomes for carers? We evidence our claims to knowledge in responding to this question in the areas of:

• shared values and how we came to them;
• our learning through writing this paper;
• our ability to give to hope to others.

In analysing our claims, we find areas of mutuality that we had not predicted. We subsequently analyse further to understand our relational dynamics and we introduce our readers to our living-theory of mutuality that emerges.

This account provides guidance for a way of writing a collaborative paper that enables both authors' voices to be of equal value, recognising both the unique and the shared perspectives as a result of our shared methodological approach. Through the process of writing a dual-authored paper we show how our mutuality develops as an explanatory principle and a living standard of judgement (Laidlaw, 1996).