

The Caretaker Complex:
Personal and Clinical Implications
Saturday, March 25, 2023 10:00 am – 3:00 pm EST
a Zoom seminar led by Irina Doctoroff, LMFT, LP
The Caretaker Complex:
Personal and Clinical Implications
Saturday, March 25, 2023 10:00 am – 3:00 pm EST
a Zoom seminar led by Irina Doctoroff, LMFT, LP
Contact hours: 4 CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.
The Caretaker Complex is one of identity which is formed early in childhood when a parent sees her child as an object she owns for her own needs and forces the child to fit into the mold of her expectations. Primarily the mother expects the child to take care of her. As adults, such children continue to serve, take care of, and accommodate other people, often at their own expense. We often meet caretaker-identified people in healing and teaching professions. What brings them to therapy is their inability to have full access to their creativity, and to experience true happiness and pleasure.
We will explore the formation, development, and treatment of the “caretaker personality.” The nature of caretakers’ original wound suggests that a crucial task for them is to allow themselves to be taken care of and be able to own and express their needs and wants. We will also discuss the caretaker personality from a historical and cultural perspective and relate it to the state of the Feminine in our patriarchal society.
Learning Objectives:
The course is designed so that participants will be able to:
- Define the Caretaker complex in terms of its nature and structure.
- Discuss mechanisms through which the Caretaker complex is formed from a Jungian and psychoanalytic perspective.
- Engage in several practices for the transformation of the negative aspects of the Caretaker complex through creative drawing and active imagination.
- Demonstrate how the formation of the Caretaker complex is connected to broader social and cultural structures and how it challenges traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity.
- Utilize myths and fairy tales to further analyze the Caretaker complex.
- Apply theoretical knowledge to clinical cases.
Irina Doctoroff, LMFT, LP, was originally trained as a Marriage and Family Therapist at the University of Maryland. She is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Manhattan, who received her training at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. She is a faculty member of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York and the C.G. Jung Foundation. The current presentation is based on her long-term work in a county clinic with children and families, as well as with individuals in private practice.
For registration by mail, please snail-mail this form:
Click Button to Download Form.
Include your credit card information or check, made payable to the C.G. Jung Foundation,
and a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
The C.G. Jung Foundation
28 East 39th Street,
New York, NY 10016
Contact hours: Four CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.
The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by New York State Education Department’s State Board of Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0350.
The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts. #P-0015.
C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists, #CAT-0068.
Saturday, March 25, 2023: 10:00 am–3:00 pm EST
This is an online program via Zoom. This program will not be recorded.