The Therapist at 60, The Patient at 60: Challenges for Psychotherapy

Abstract

Women (and men) come to psychotherapy in their 50s and 60s with specific developmental issues confronting them at this stage of life. Facing the ultimate end of death is, of course, underlying all challenges at this age. There are also challenges to one's narcissistic equilibrium as each woman experiences losses and limitations. This time of life requires a reevaluation of her past and a transformation of her identity and intentions moving ahead. The author speaks of having faced these issues in her own life and her own psychotherapy, an essential process in preparation to be of use to her patients in psychotherapy. Insights are drawn from personal experience as well as from the writings of existentialist thinkers, Object Relations theorists, Jungians, and also from several poets. Two case examples illustrate these themes.

KEYWORDS:

• aging
• developmental tasks
• losses
• mature identity
• psychotherapy
• women

Notes

¹In the two cases I am going to present, names and identifying data have been changed.