Other-Directedness

The domain where your needs always come second — or never surface at all.

Overview

This schema domain is built on one core strategy: prioritizing others to avoid conflict, rejection, or guilt.

Maybe you learned that expressing needs was selfish.
Or that love had to be earned by accommodating, pleasing, or disappearing.
Over time, your nervous system internalized one rule:
“Keep them happy, or something bad will happen.”

At ShiftGrit, we often see this domain in high-functioning clients who feel burnt out, resentful, or invisible — but still can’t stop overgiving.

Schemas Within This Domain

Each schema reflects a different strategy for disconnecting from one’s own needs:

• Subjugation: “If I speak up, I’ll be punished or rejected.”

• Self-Sacrifice: “It’s my job to meet everyone’s needs — not mine.”

• Approval-Seeking/Recognition-Seeking: “I need others to validate me to feel okay.”

🔄 How This Shows Up

• People-pleasing or over-functioning

• Difficulty setting or maintaining boundaries

• Suppressing anger or needs to “keep the peace”

• Intense guilt when prioritizing self

• Externalizing worth through praise or performance

🛠 How We Treat This

We help clients reclaim space in their own internal world — and stop living in reaction to everyone else.

1. Map the overfunctioning loop: Approval/peace-keeping → burnout → collapse

2. Recondition the belief: “My needs cause harm” → “My needs matter”

3. Rebuild inner space: Safe boundaries, emotional safety, guilt reprocessing

🔗 Related Lifetraps in This Domain

• Subjugation

• Self-Sacrifice

• Approval-Seeking/Recognition-Seeking