There's a kind of maladaptive perfectionism to chronic over-responsibility, and the results can be almost self-harming.
“Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done.”
– Hubert Selby Jr
Graham felt responsible.
What for? Geopolitical wars? The national debt? Global warming?
No.
Graham felt responsible for the happiness and wellbeing of most other people in his life.
- His feckless son is unemployed and drinks too much? Graham’s responsibility.
- His wife is grumpy and bored? Graham’s responsibility.
- His co-workers don’t get their work done? Graham’s responsibility.
Graham felt he could never do enough for other people. His wife’s unhappiness, for example, was completely down to him. If she was in a bad mood he felt it was entirely and invariably his fault. Not surprisingly, he was fast becoming depressed.
He had the kind of creased brow and rinsed-out look of the chronically burdened. Indeed, he said early on:
“I feel that the weight of the world is on my shoulders, to be honest Mark!”
“Like Atlas,” I said.
“What?”
“You carry the world!”
“Ah… yes.”
Graham had been a parentified child, in that as a child he’d been the main carer for his sick mother and had missed out on a carefree childhood. He’d taken on adult responsibilities and emotional burdens at a very young age.
But now the burdens were crushing him.
How do your clients perceive their role in their relationships? If they feel overly responsible, that very attitude could be creating much of their distress.
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Responsibility and depression
Depression emerges and persists through excessive negative and hopeless rumination.1 Likewise, the cycle of depression seems to fall apart when we solve the problems we were ruminating over and/or start to ruminate less, or at least in less hopeless ways.2
Graham spent a lot of time trying to control, or believing he should control, other people’s experience of life. And because he was naturally caring and had been conditioned through his early years to take on other people’s burdens, he was struggling under a weight of worry.
Some people feel they are or should be totally responsible in a romantic relationship, with the result that if it doesn’t work out or runs into problems they exclusively blame themselves.
Of course, being involved with other people, helping them and caring about them, is an integral part of being a decent human being. But we also need to know where our boundaries lie and use those boundaries.
And of course, not all over-responsible clients will be depressed – but make no mistake, the rumination associated with feeling overly responsible for others can be depressing. So here are three strategies to help clients who feel overly responsible for most everyone else.
Strategy one: Help them understand what they are actually responsible for
It’s useful to separate out what we are really responsible for.
Graham and I explored the difference between influence and control. I can influence how wet I get in a downpour by cloaking myself in waterproofs, but I can’t control the weather.
Graham might be able to influence the moods of his wife, but he certainly couldn’t control them.
He could encourage his son to work or to seek help for his drinking, but he couldn’t and needn’t hold himself entirely accountable for his son’s lifestyle. After all, his son was in his thirties.
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Greedy for pie?
I sometimes talk about the ‘blame pie’ or ‘responsibility pie’ to those who ‘greedily’ take too big a slice of blame when things go wrong.
I had Graham visualize such a ‘responsibility pie’ (let me know if you actually find this on a menu anywhere!). “Is it fair to deny others their fair share of responsibility?” I asked him. He laughed as he got the point.
So ask your client to separate what is theirs to handle from what belongs to others. Have them ask themselves: “Is this my responsibility, or am I taking on someone else’s load? Am I stealing their fair share of responsibility?”
This mental boundary helps them focus on what they can control, rather than becoming overwhelmed by issues outside their scope.
Of course, some people take on too much and assume all the responsibility because they feel bad about asking others to take on their fair share. This can equate to a lack of assertion or boundary-laying skills.
Strategy two: Practise saying no (without guilt)
It’s a harsh truth in life that if you are conscientious and eager to grab most of the responsibility pie (yes, I know it’s a bit Sesame Street!) then other people will soon pick up on that and, as a result, may start to naturally take less of their fair share of responsibility.
There is such a thing as passivity and abdication of personal responsibility. And people may do that more around overly responsible types.
There’s a kind of maladaptive perfectionism to chronic over-responsibility, and the results can be almost self-harming.
Graham felt he was almost addicted to shouldering responsibility. We had to wean him off it, not totally of course – everyone has to look out for other people to some extent – but enough to let himself actually enjoy his life.
He began to cut back how much money he gave his son every month. He stopped taking on every extra bit of work co-workers asked him to do, when it was really their work.
So help your client learn to set limits with kindness but firmness. Guide them to understand that saying no doesn’t mean they don’t care, it just means they’re valuing their own capacity. In this way, they can free up their energy for what truly matters, reducing stress and resentment.
You can brainstorm with the client alternative ways of responding. For example, instead of “I guess I can do that,” they could try, “I’d love to help, but I don’t have the bandwidth right now.”
Finally, we can help our over-responsible clients understand that when they more equally share responsibility, they can benefit not only themselves but other people in their lives too.
Strategy three: Allow others to learn and grow
Graham laughed when I sort of jokingly referred to over-responsibility as a kind of greed. But the jokey reframe kind of worked for him, partly because he was such a good and decent man, and he really didn’t want to see himself as ‘greedy’!
It made perfect sense to Graham and he felt he had been, as he put it, “infantilizing” other people by not allowing them to take responsibility for themselves.
‘Cruel to be kind’ is a thing, and it’s real.
Human beings learn through adversity, struggle, and challenge.To deny others the chance to grow through effort is, in some cases, to steal their potential.
Bit by bit, Graham came to understand that one of his greatest responsibilities was to enable others to take responsibility.
So you can encourage your client to resist the urge to ‘fix’ everything. Until they do, they are depriving others of growth opportunities. Letting others face their own challenges can empower them to find solutions and grow stronger. Supporting instead of rescuing builds healthier relationships.
Some clients may find it harder than others to accept this reframe, but you can continue to remind them: You can care deeply about someone without carrying their burden.
Graham wasn’t religious, but he did at one point tell me that maybe he wasn’t the “saviour” after all.
Atlas unburdened
Graham began to feel better. His improved mood seemed to lift his wife’s mood too. People stopped assuming he’d do everything for them. He no longer felt depressed. Even his formerly feckless son had started doing more for himself.
In our very last session, Graham looked particularly relaxed. He said:
“I stopped carrying the world on my shoulders, and you know what, Mark?”
“What?”
“It turns out the world can float by itself.”
And with that astronomical allusion, our therapy was done.
Discover a New Way to Approach Depression Treatment
Treating depression can feel like a thankless task, as you battle the incessant negativity of the depressive mindset. The approach to treating depression you will learn on Mark’s online course How to Lift Depression Fast will not only empower you against depression but also protect you against its negative bias. Developed over more than 20 years of working with top psychologists, training health professionals, and treating clients, How to Lift Depression Fast will make you look forward to your next depressed client. You can read more about it here.
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About Mark Tyrrell
Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.
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