What Motivates Someone To Become A Caregiver Essay

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Recommended: Sympathy and Empathy

Part 1: Sympathy Empathy and Over-Identifying and What Motivates Someone to Become a Caregiver

As caregivers, there’s an inner drive that motivates us to help others. Sometimes, that drive can come from a healthy place — we practice self-care and hold fast to the boundaries we’ve placed to do our best work. But other times, the internal prompt that compels us to be caregivers might come from an unhealthy place, and we unintentionally find ourselves overwhelmed by the needs of others. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a way to identify our inner motivators?

You’re in luck because we do. There are three, powerful reasons a person may choose to become a caregiver: Sympathy, empathy, or over-identifying with the needs of others. Let’s take a look at each one to see where you may fall on the continuum of caregiving. You might find you’re well-equipped to sustain an ongoing job as a caregiver. Or, you may learn that there are some areas in your thought processes or behaviors that require a little TLC to do your best work and defeat the weariness that comes with looking after other people. …show more content…

A caregiver who is motivated by pity wants to give their clients a “quick fix,” or something to make the problem swiftly stop.

In contrast, there’s empathy, which allows a caregiver to notice when someone needs help. Empathetic caregivers can look at the scope of suffering a patient or client may be enduring, and they try to find a connection with that suffering on a more in-depth, emotional

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