Caregiver counseling provides practical insights and straightforward answers to the challenges of elderly care, including health, financial, legal, and family relationships.
- Are you a caregiver with more problems than answers?
- Have you spent hours on the internet searching for answers and don’t know any more than when you started?
- Are family disagreements and challenges weighing you down?
- Is your elderly loved one’s health getting worse instead of better?
Being responsible for the care of another person isn’t easy, especially when you consider all the unexpected complications that can arise. You might be surprised to learn that a single caregiver counseling session can create a path for solving problems that might be weighing on your mind.
Identifying the Differences Between Traditional Counseling and Caregiver Counseling
Traditional counseling or therapy can have a negative connotation because, by definition, it is psychologically focused mental health therapy. Definitions in the dictionary include:
- Assistance and guidance in resolving personal, social, or psychological problems and difficulties.
- Understand thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to find solutions and cope with challenges related to relationships and feelings.
Statistics on counseling and therapy confirm that women are twice as likely to see a counselor as men, with one in four women versus one in seven men seeking counseling, according to the CDC.
Why? Men are less likely to seek therapy due to society’s expectations that men should deal with problems themselves, or they believe mental health concerns are a private matter. And when men attend therapy, they are more likely to drop out or attend fewer sessions.
The focus of traditional counseling on emotions differs from caregiving counseling, which focuses on identifying and solving problems that can cause emotional distress by accepting responsibility for the caregiver’s role.
The focus on identifying problems and solutions makes caregiver counseling an effective solution for men and women seeking solutions to specific problems. Caregiver counseling can also validate decision-making and provide additional insights for consideration.
Creating Dependence vs. Independence
The type of counselor you choose depends on your specific needs and preferences. Do you need or want someone to hold your hand over a period of 6 months or a year or more, so you can deal with emotional concerns that began in your childhood or your adult life that remain mentally and emotionally disturbing?
Or would you like immediate solutions and options for caregiving problems by speaking with a caregiver counselor who is problem- and solution-focused?
The downside of traditional counseling or therapy is that a person can be in counseling for years, become dependent on a therapist, and feel they cannot be on their own without the support of counseling sessions. So, instead of becoming independent through counseling, some individuals become more dependent.
Independence and dependence are key themes in caregiving. Family caregivers, unintentionally, through their actions, can make the people they care for increasingly more dependent on them, and then feel like they can never leave the relationship.
By being helpful, caregivers can inadvertently make the person they care for more dependent, which is counterproductive, meaning something that is undesirable.
This shift from independence to dependence happens when caregivers trade parts of their lives to be caregivers. When caregivers take time away from caring for themselves, pursuing education, getting promoted at work, deprioritizing a marriage, and putting personal needs on the back burner.
Because
the role of caregiving is often affected by unexpected twists and turns, it’s beneficial to have a plan for addressing today’s issues and anticipating the challenges of tomorrow that you may not have the experience to predict.
Being Too Helpful Has Its Downsides
As a caregiver, it’s essential to help the person you care for develop more independence and self-esteem, enabling them to continue living independently. Do not make a habit of doing tasks for an elderly parent or a spouse that they can still do for themselves.
When you take on more tasks, you take away the self-esteem and ability of others to do things for themselves. The result of making people dependent on caregivers is that
caregivers become burned out, exhausted, frustrated, impatient, and unkind, often forgetting who they were before caregiving became a responsibility.
Focusing on Emotions Versus Actions
While emotions are part of caregiving, creating solutions results from accepting accountability for past and future actions. If you want change, a caregiver counselor can offer straight answers and recommendations for potential next steps.
When selecting a counselor, ensure that the one you choose has the practical experience to address the issues you are experiencing. Book smarts without practical application, tailored explicitly to the complexities of the health, financial, legal, and family aspects of caregiving, often fail in many situations.
A caregiver counselor with years of professional and personal lived experience, in addition to advanced education, is more likely to have the skills to assist you.
Caregiver Counseling: Solutions for the Care of Elderly Loved Ones
Click the red arrow button in the picture below to watch the video.
Watch More Videos About Caregiving, Aging, and Health on
Pamela’s YouTube ChannelCaregiver Counseling is a Small Niche Dealing with the Intimate Details of Life
Caregiver counselors have niche experience because caregiving expertise encompasses a wide range of healthcare, legal, financial, and family relationships, which must be personally gained.
Caregiving expertise requires a range of personal experiences over the years that develop into knowledge and proven, practical experience.
Read more about Pamela D Wilson as a caregiving expert and expert witness of more than 25 years by reviewing her bio and similar pages about her expertise on this website. So, while caregiver counseling takes emotions and feelings into account—because caregiving relationships are emotional and deal with intimate details of life—caregiver counseling is not intended to solve issues that happened when you were a child and your parents didn’t give you what you wanted.
Although caregiver counseling can identify these issues, if you are a caregiver who does too much. Are you a caregiver seeking approval from a parent or expecting appreciation for your efforts from a parent? Based on parent-child relationships, this may never happen. Traditional therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists can help you navigate these feelings and emotions.
However, if you are in an
abusive caregiving situation where your health and well-being are suffering, a caregiver counselor can give you concrete steps to remove yourself from an abusive situation without feeling guilty. Additionally if other family member are abusing an elderly parent it’s important to know the steps you can take to protect your aging loved one.
Learning How Caregiver Counseling Can Help You, Your Family, and the Person You Care For
No caregiver should feel that they are 100% responsible for meeting the needs of another person. If this is you, you are likely in a lopsided, unrealistic, and unsustainable care situation that would benefit from re-balancing expectations.
Elderly parents may have unrealistic expectations about the level of participation from adult children as they age and require assistance. In such cases, receiving validation that you are being thoughtful in your decision-making can be helpful.
It’s easy not to know what you should know when there’s so much to know about the health, legal, and financial aspects of being responsible for caring for a loved one.
When caregivers become stuck because they have taken on the responsibility of another person, they may experience feelings of exhaustion, hopelessness, or frustration. Caregivers ask, “How did I get myself into this situation?”
To learn more about topics addressed in caregiver counseling sessions, read the list on Pamela’s elder care consultation page, where you can also schedule a 1:1 consultation. The question to ask is, how can I change this situation so that I feel happier and more engaged in my life, rather than dedicating all my time to caring for someone else?
Debunking Societal, Religious, and Cultural Beliefs about Caregiving There are many societal, religious, and cultural beliefs that emphasize the importance of spouses caring for their spouses and adult children caring for their elderly parents until the end of their lives. These beliefs are false when the caregiving relationship is harmful to the caregiver’s health, well-being, family life, career, and their ability to be self-sustaining and independent.
To break family and generational cycles, having another person to show the possibilities and offer encouragement can be necessary.
Caregivers, change your lives by realizing that more opportunities are waiting that you can possibly imagine. Find the motivation to change your life by asking for help and seeking advice from people with knowledge, practical expertise, and wisdom.
Eliminating Fear and Hesitation Can Open Doors to Better Care Relationships
If fear or hesitation is holding you back, set these harmful feelings aside so that you can move forward. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy. Why shouldn’t your needs be met?
Stop allowing mental limitations to limit life’s possibilities. Find the courage to move ahead.
People impose limits through limiting thinking. Don’t let others tell you what to do if it’s not working out. Don’t let the person you care for make you feel guilty or tear down your self-esteem or positive self-beliefs.
Beliefs are often shaped by previous life experiences that create daily habits. So, it’s crucial to
be open to new learning experiences, examine beliefs, and form new positive habits around caregiving roles and responsibilities.
The enemy of progress can be negative thoughts and self-doubt. Being stubborn and thinking narrowly limits potential. By figuring out blocks to progress and removing these roadblocks, progress is made.
So, convert negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Yesterday is gone. Each day is a new start. Take a step forward on the path to a happier, healthier, and more prosperous life by getting the help you need.
Looking For Help Caring for Elderly Parents? Schedule a 1:1 Caregiver Counseling Session with Pamela D Wilson.
©2025 Pamela D. Wilson All Rights Reserved.