Do you take on the caretaker role in most of your relationships?

Focusing on Caretakers Tendencies

This particular blog does not focus on caregivers or caretakers who are responsible for providing necessary support to someone who truly cannot care for themselves due to illness, functional limitation, age, safety risks or other critical needs.

It focuses on people with general emotional caretaker tendencies, who often take responsibility for the emotional well-being of others in most of their relationships. They step in to help, comfort, or manage situations, even when others could handle things themselves.

If you often put other people’s needs before your own, take on responsibility for everyone around you, even when you are not asked to or if it isn’t even necessary, you may have caretaking parts that are working overtime. While the desire to take care of everyone most of the time can come from a place of love and care, it can create feelings of stress, burnout, and resentment over time.

Guilt, Responsibility, and the Pressure to Take Care of Others

Maybe you’re always the one who plans everyone’s schedule, fixes their problems, or sacrifices your own plans just to make sure others feel okay. Maybe you have tried to set limits but feel guilty or selfish for taking care of your own needs.

You might notice that you often feel guilty when you’re not helping someone or worry that someone else’s happiness depends on you. That constant sense of responsibility can feel exhausting, like you’re carrying everyone else’s needs on feelings shoulders.

Using IFS to Understand Your Caretaking Parts

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), the mind is made up of multiple “parts,” each part with its own feelings, beliefs, and roles. If you have a strong caretaking part, you may find that there can be benefits in your life. The Caretaking parts in you can help to maintain relationships, help to avoid conflict, prevent anticipated suffering, and give comfort those around you. While this part may make you dependable and empathetic, constantly prioritizing others’ needs can leave little space for your own needs. IFS therapy helps you to understand the parts of you that want to take care of others and the parts that feel burdened by the the constant need or expectation that you will take care of it. While exploring what comes up for you when you set boundaries or prioritize your own needs.

IFS therapy provides a way to understand and work with these overworked caretaking parts and can help you set healthier boundaries, build self-compassion, and find balance.

Connections to earlier responsibilities

Many caretaking parts develop early in life, often in response to family or social environments where taking care of others was necessary for safety, connection, or approval. These parts often have a sensitivity to the needs of others. They can sense what others might need even before it is expressed. They can feel a sense of responsibility to find a resolution or to volunteer to help. These parts may have learned to stay vigilant, anticipate needs, and minimize conflict to preserve belonging or to feel needed or valued. Over time, this can create internal pressure to put others first, even at personal cost. Understanding the origin of these parts through IFS therapy can increase self-compassion and reduce the shame or guilt associated with saying no or prioritizing yourself.

Caring for Others Without Losing Yourself

A core goal of IFS therapy is connecting with your Self. The Self is understood as the compassionate, calm, and curious, grounded center of who you are. From this space, you can relate to your caretaking parts with understanding instead of judgment.

Working with caretaking parts in IFS does not mean you stop caring for others. Instead, it can help you to care in a way that feels more sustainable and balanced with your own needs included. By balancing caretaking parts within you system, you can experience more energy, satisfaction, and emotional well-being.

Curious How To Balance Your Caretaker Patterns?

If you find yourself caretaking patterns, IFS therapy can help support you in finding balance. Schedule a session with Shohreh Schmuecker, LMFT, an experienced IFS therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Start the process in understanding your caretaking parts, setting healthier boundaries, and cultivating a more balanced, compassionate relationship with yourself and others.

This blog is for general information purposes only. It is not meant for a substitution for medical or mental health advice or treatment. Please see a licensed professional for medical or mental health advice and/or recommendations specific to your needs.