The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers: Managing Anxiety, Finding Meaning & Advocating for Change with Dr. Barry Jacobs

The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers: Managing Anxiety, Finding Meaning & Advocating for Change with Barry Jacobs, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist 

What happens to our inner world when we're called to care for someone we love? Behind the logistics of doctor’s appointments, medication schedules, and sleepless nights—there’s an invisible landscape of emotions, identity shifts, and resilience that often goes unspoken. Today, we're stepping into that space. The place where caregiving becomes more than a role—it becomes a reckoning with who we are, what we value, and how we keep going.

Joining me is Dr. Barry J. Jacobs, a clinical psychologist, family therapist, and one of the most thoughtful voices in caregiving today. He’s not only written some of the most compassionate guides for family caregivers—including The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers and the upcoming AARP Caregiver Answer Book—but he’s lived it too. Barry was a caregiver for both his father and mother, and he brings that lived empathy into everything he teaches. He’s spent his career working at the intersection of healthcare systems, family dynamics, and the emotional survival of caregivers.

In this conversation, we talk about the emotional toll caregiving takes, the guilt that sneaks in, and how to hold onto your identity and your relationships along the way. Barry shares practical advice for managing anxiety, how the healthcare system can do better by caregivers, and how meaning and connection still have space—even in the hardest seasons. Whether you’re in the thick of caregiving or supporting someone who is, this episode is here to remind you: you’re not alone, and you’re doing better than you think.

Listen to our episode HERE.

Buy the new AARP Caregiver Answer Book HERE.

To learn more about Barry and Love and Meaning, visit HERE.

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About Barry Jacobs

Barry J. Jacobs, Psy.D., is a Philadelphia area-based clinical psychologist, family therapist, and Principal for Health Management Associates, a national healthcare consulting firm. A former magazine journalist, he is the author/co-author of three self-help books for family caregivers, including The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers (Guilford, 2006), AARP Meditations for Caregivers (Hachette, 2016), and the forthcoming The AARP Caregiver Answer Book (Guilford, July 2025). He has also written a column on family caregiving for AARP.org since 2013. For seven years, he was the primary caregiver for his stepfather with Alzheimer's disease and mother with vascular dementia. To learn more about him, please visit www.loveandmeaning.com.

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We are not medical professionals and are not providing any medical advice. If you have any medical questions, we recommend that you talk with a medical professional of your choice. willGather has taken care in selecting its speakers but the opinions of our speakers are theirs alone. Thank you for your continued interest in our podcasts.

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