---
title: Tennessee Psychotherapist Judy K. Herman on Caregiver Burnout After Dolly Parton's Passing
description: Chattanooga psychotherapist Judy K. Herman on relational over-responsibility, the health cost of caregiving, and a 90-second breathing practice to interrupt it.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
updated: 2026-09-07T12:24:07.468Z
canonical: https://richhealthmagazine.com/article/judy-herman-caregiver-burnout-dolly-parton
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/judy-herman-headshot.webp
categories: Mental Health, Health
content_type: Spotlight
region: Tennessee
publication: Rich Health Magazine
about:
  - type: Person
    name: Judy K. Herman
    description: "Judy K. Herman, LPC-MHSP, NCC, is a psychotherapist, relationship specialist, author and speaker based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and licensed in Tennessee and Georgia. She has been in practice for more than 20 years and is the founder of Relationship Wellness, LLC. She is the author of Beyond Messy Relationships: Divine Invitations to Your Authentic Self (Morgan James Publishing, 2019) and Relationships with Purpose (2023), and hosts the Better Relationships, Better Life podcast. Her work covers relational stress, caregiver burnout, over-responsibility and the connection between emotional and physical well-being."
    url: https://www.judycounselor.com
    jobTitle: Psychotherapist and Founder
    worksFor: Relationship Wellness, LLC
---

Four days before she passed away, Dolly Parton told People magazine she was "dealing with some health issues that I just didn't pay attention to when I was watching over Carl." It was the third time in a year she had said something like it. In October 2025 she told fans in a video that during her husband's long illness, and after he passed, "I didn't take care of myself. So I let a lot of things go that I should've been taking care of."

For Judy K. Herman, LPC-MHSP, NCC, a psychotherapist and relationship specialist in Chattanooga, Tennessee, those sentences described something she has watched for more than 20 years in her counseling room. Parton had been married to Carl Dean for nearly 60 years when he passed away in March 2025.

"We can love someone deeply and still lose ourselves in the process," Herman says. "We can become so focused on someone else's needs, moods, symptoms and well-being that we gradually stop paying attention to our own."

Herman says nobody knows what role, if any, caregiving stress played in Parton's illness. "It would be irresponsible to speculate," she says. What caught her attention was Parton's own account. "She had been so focused on caring for someone she loved that some of her own health needs didn't get the same attention. I think a lot of people, especially caregivers and therapists like me who spend their lives caring for others, will recognize themselves in that."

## Relational Over-Responsibility and Losing Yourself in a Relationship

Herman calls the pattern relational over-responsibility. It shows up in caregiving, but also in marriage, parenting and any close relationship where [one person's needs gradually become the whole agenda](https://richhealthmagazine.com/article/when-having-it-all-feels-hollow-how-ashly-balza-calls-women-back-to-themselves). What begins as love and concern turns, over months and years, into a habit of putting the other person first and ignoring one's own emotional and physical warning signs.

"Caring isn't the problem," Herman says. "Losing ourselves in the caring is the warning signal."

She describes physical symptoms, low mood and even relationship conflict as working like the warning lights on a car's dashboard. "The warning light isn't the enemy. It's information," she says. "Our bodies and our emotions send us signals too. The question is, are we paying attention? And are we willing to do something different to honor our loved ones and ourselves?"

The signals she asks caregivers to watch for are changes in sleep, mood, energy and appetite, new aches that get waved away, and the habit of postponing a doctor's appointment because someone else's appointment comes first. Parton's own account fits that last one closely. In her October 2025 video she said her doctor had told her "we need to take care of this, we need to take care of that," and that she had to cancel work to stay close to Vanderbilt for treatment.

## The Story Behind Beyond Messy Relationships

> "What I've discovered is that we cannot breathe another person's breath or live the other's life for them. We can only do that for ourselves."
> — Judy K. Herman

Her first book, Beyond Messy Relationships: Divine Invitations to Your Authentic Self (Morgan James Publishing, 2019), is her own story, written like a memoir with a therapist's commentary opening each chapter. In its prologue she writes that she was compelled to write the book after her partner's second psychotic episode from bipolar disorder, a period of in-patient hospitalizations, a near-death experience and uncertainty, followed by long stretches of depression. She was a working therapist through all of it, and for a long time, assumed she could handle it.

Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, the authors of Getting the Love You Want, wrote in their endorsement that most marriage books use couples as their data, and that in this one the couples therapist is the client, with her experience grounded in current marital research. Herman says readers do not need to share her circumstances to use the book, since the issues she works through, over-responsibility among them, are common enough that people recognize their own version.

### Book: Beyond Messy Relationships
*Divine Invitations to Your Authentic Self*
By Judy K. Herman

Psychotherapist Judy K. Herman tells her own story of a marriage upended by her partner's bipolar disorder, from a psychotic break and in-patient hospitalizations through long seasons of depression, and of what it took to stop losing herself in caring for someone else. Written like a memoir, with the therapist stepping in at the start of each chapter to draw out the psychological and spiritual lessons, the book covers over-responsibility, codependency, divorce, blended families and faith, and is meant for readers whose circumstances differ but who recognize the same pattern in their own relationships. Endorsed by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, authors of Getting the Love You Want.

[Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1642793213)

## High-Achieving Women and Quiet Quitting

Herman's practice has given her a clear picture of who is most at risk. Over more than 20 years and hundreds of client stories, she says the pattern shows up most often in [high-achieving, nurturing women](https://richhealthmagazine.com/article/the-feeling-you-can-t-share-living-through-nulling-out). They raise the children, run the household, keep their husbands happy and, often, manage a team at work. For a while it holds, because they are good at it and because their partners let them do all the work. Long term, they wear down. First it shows up as health problems. Then they [quietly quit their jobs, their marriages, or both](https://richhealthmagazine.com/article/relationships-breaking-down-knowing-when-it-s-time-to-let-go).

## Caregiver Stress and What It Does to the Body

The 2025 [Caregiving in the US report](https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/ltss/family-caregiving/caregiving-in-the-us-2025/) from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving counts 63 million family caregivers, roughly one adult in four. Nearly a quarter of them say they have difficulty looking after their own health, and one in five rates their own health as fair or poor.

In a six-year Ohio State University [study published in PNAS](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1531903100), levels of the inflammatory marker interleukin-6 rose about four times faster in people caring for a spouse with dementia than in non-caregivers of the same age, and stayed elevated for up to three years after the caregiving ended. Earlier work by the same group found that small wounds took around a quarter longer to heal in caregivers than in matched controls.

"Sometimes we think taking care of ourselves means we're taking something away from the person we love," Herman says. "I believe the opposite is true. Increasing awareness of our own bodies and being mindful of connection with ourselves allows us to show up with greater honesty, compassion and strength for the people we love."

## The A.I.R. Breathing Practice to Calm the Nervous System

Herman gives clients 90 seconds of deep breathing, which she calls breathing fresh A.I.R., for Awareness, Intentions and Risks of growth. Deep breathing calms the nervous system and interrupts the shallow, reactive breathing that becomes a habit in tense households. Herman says the physical calm is only the first step. The awareness that follows makes it easier to see what is actually happening. That makes it possible to be intentional about the next step rather than reacting. And it gives people the nerve to take the risks that growth needs, whether that is calling a therapist, telling a friend what is going on at home, or doing the thing that pushes them out of a familiar but unhealthy routine.

Herman calls the broader aim productive empathy: caring for the other person without giving up responsibility for oneself. "Conflict isn't the enemy. Disconnection is," she says. "And sometimes the person we've become disconnected from is ourselves."

Herman is licensed in Tennessee and Georgia, works with other therapists, and is the founder of Relationship Wellness, LLC. Her second book, Relationships with Purpose, collects her interviews with relationship writers including Hendrix, Hunt and Katherine Woodward Thomas. She is available for television, radio, podcast and print interviews on caregiver burnout, relational over-responsibility, chronic relationship stress and self-neglect.

**About Judy K. Herman**
Psychotherapist and Founder, Relationship Wellness, LLC

Judy K. Herman, LPC-MHSP, NCC, is a psychotherapist, relationship specialist, author and speaker based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and licensed in Tennessee and Georgia. She has been in practice for more than 20 years and is the founder of Relationship Wellness, LLC. She is the author of Beyond Messy Relationships: Divine Invitations to Your Authentic Self (Morgan James Publishing, 2019) and Relationships with Purpose (2023), and hosts the Better Relationships, Better Life podcast. Her work covers relational stress, caregiver burnout, over-responsibility and the connection between emotional and physical well-being.

[Website](https://www.judycounselor.com)

## FAQ

**Q: What are three symptoms of caregiver burnout?**
Herman tells caregivers to watch for changes in sleep, mood and energy first, along with appetite changes and new physical symptoms. A fourth sign she singles out is the habit of postponing your own medical care because someone else's needs come first, which is the pattern Dolly Parton described in her own case.

**Q: Is it common to lose yourself in a relationship?**
In Herman's practice it is the most common pattern she sees, and it is not limited to caregiving. She calls it relational over-responsibility, and says it shows up in marriage, parenting and any close relationship where one person's needs gradually take over. High-achieving, nurturing women are the group she sees it in most.

**Q: Can deep breathing reset your nervous system?**
Deep breathing calms the nervous system and interrupts the shallow, reactive breathing that becomes a habit under chronic stress. Herman's A.I.R. practice uses 90 seconds of deep breathing as a starting point, then works on awareness of what is happening, an intentional next step, and the risks of growth that follow.

**Q: What can I do if I feel overwhelmed by caregiving?**
Herman's advice is to treat your own symptoms as information rather than something to push through, and to act on them the way you would act on the person you care for. That includes keeping your own medical appointments, telling someone what is going on at home, and getting help from a therapist. Looking after yourself does not take anything away from the person you love.