Balancing Care Across Generations: You’ve been showing up for everyone — your parents, your kids, your work — constantly juggling needs that never seem to end. You’re dependable, strong, the one who keeps it all moving. But lately, that strength feels like strain. You’re running on empty, wondering when it’s your turn to rest.

You’ve been the glue that keeps everyone else steady — but who holds space for you?

Who is The sandwich generation?:

The "sandwich generation" refers to a group of adults—typically in their 30s to 50s—who are simultaneously caring for their aging parents while supporting their own children. You may be "sandwiched" between two generations that depend on you for caregiving tasks such as helping parents with medical issues, housing, or daily tasks while also raising young children or supporting adult children (e.g., with college or living expenses). There likely is an emotional and financial dependence, as well as time constraints which can lead to burnout, anxiety and challenges finding time for yourself or your career.   ​ ​

The emotional landscape

Caring for aging parents when you have a complicated, strained, or even painful relationship with them is one of the hardest emotional challenges faced by members of the sandwich generation. It creates a double bind — you may be physically caring for someone who hurt, neglected, or failed you emotionally, while still carrying the emotional weight of what was never resolved. An internal struggle may occur where you are juggling compassion, duty, resentment, guilt, boundaries and grief —all at once. It can be deeply triggering, but also (with support) it can be profoundly healing.

What We Work On in Therapy:

Together, we will process the complex emotions that come with caring for everyone else, and to learn how to care for yourself, too.

• Caregiver burnout and compassion fatigue

• Guilt and perfectionism

• Grief and role transitions

• Stress, anxiety, and emotional regulation

• Communication and boundaries

• Identity and self-care

Therapy talk: evidence-based modalities

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Supports you in identifying and challenging the self-critical or guilt-driven thoughts that often come with caregiving — such as “I should be doing more” or “I can’t take a break.” CBT helps you recognize patterns of over-responsibility and unrealistic expectations, offering tools to set boundaries, reduce anxiety, and find balance between caring for others and caring for yourself.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Encourages you to acknowledge the complexity of caregiving — the love, exhaustion, frustration, and grief — without judgment. ACT helps you connect with your values around family, compassion, and self-care, even when life feels overwhelming. Through mindfulness and emotional flexibility, you can respond with intention rather than pressure, allowing space for both care and rest.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Addresses the emotional weight that caregiving can carry — past experiences of loss, responsibility, or fear that may surface as you support multiple generations. EMDR helps reprocess distressing memories and release beliefs like “It’s all on me” or “I can’t ask for help.” As these burdens lighten, you can move through caregiving with greater calm, resilience, and self-compassion, grounded in the understanding that you do not have to carry everything alone.

You don’t have to keep holding it all together on your own; it’s possible to care for the people you love while also making space to care for yourself.