Less Time Ahead, More Behind: Being a Psychotherapist in the Last Third of Life

Abstract

For those of us in the last third of life, there is less time ahead and more time behind. The greater proximity to death can lead not only to expansions of the self but to a profoundly revelatory lowering of defenses: it can allow us to acknowledge reality in a way not before possible. The recognition that “life is short” leads to a pruning of activities. The accumulation of years behind us increases perspective and offers a greater sense of the whole. We have ever more “ages inside us,” allowing empathy with ever more patients of different (actual and internal) ages. We are more pragmatic, self-regulated, integrated, simply human. There is greater freedom from the rules. The psychotherapy profession, by its very nature, encourages these and other emotional transformations through aging.

KEYWORDS:

• adult development
• aging
• death
• psychotherapy