Some people think that therapy is only for people in the midst of a severe mental health crisis, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. While of course therapy is very helpful to those who are struggling with a serious mental health condition, it’s also a useful tool for anyone at any stage of life. Older adults in particular might benefit from sessions with a therapist, as they might be dealing with unique challenges as they age. In this article we’ll look at some of the reasons why therapy might be right for you, and the benefits you might experience from doing so.
Life Transitions
A common issue for older adults is figuring out how to process major life transitions. While everyone experiences changes throughout their lives, many older adults have been living in the same place and going through the same routine for many years, maybe even decades, so a sudden major change might be a lot more jarring than it might be for, say, a young college student.
Before we get into different kinds of life transitions, let’s talk about what it means. A life transition is basically any kind of major change that happens in one’s professional or personal life. Sometimes these changes might be viewed as negative or extremely positive, but in either case, they are likely to come with a wide range of emotions and upheaval in one’s life. Here are some examples of life transitions
- Retirement. While retirement is often a joyful an exciting time, it is still a major life change, and some older adults struggle with finding a sense of purpose now that they don’t have a regular job to give their attention to.
- Death of a spouse. The death of a spouse or long-term partner is obviously devastating, but can also force a lot of other changes in one’s life. A spouse may have been providing support for chronic illness, or done a lot of the work around the house that the other person is no longer capable of, such as cooking or landscaping. And, even if the surviving partner is still capable and completely independent, the feelings accompanying such a major loss can be difficult to process alone.
- Moving. Many older adults might choose to move cities to be closer to their adult children, but this can mean moving to an unfamiliar place where they don’t have an existing community. Another type of move might be into assisted living or long term care. This might bring up feelings of sadness and resentment at losing some independence and being in an unfamiliar environment.
- Birth of a grandchild. While this is obviously a wonderful event, it can change a family’s dynamic, and sometimes conversations around how much help is expected can be difficult to navigate.
A therapist can help you work through the complicated feelings that can surround the above or any other life transitions you may be facing. Not only will this help to lessen some of your own stress, but it can also allow you to focus on more of the positives in your own life, like spending enjoyable time with loved ones, or finding a new hobby to explore in your retirement.
Cognitive Decline
Cognitive decline is a reduction in one’s mental ability and may affect memory, judgement and awareness and mood. Everyone experiences a small amount of cognitive decline as a natural side effect of aging, but for some it may be much more aggressive. This might be due to brain injury, various diseases, or a condition like dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
While some conditions, like Alzheimer’s, don’t have a cure, therapy can still be very helpful for those experiencing cognitive decline to help with the management of symptoms and the complex feelings that accompany them. Dealing with cognitive decline can introduce feelings of intense grief, anger and sadness, and although loved ones may be supportive, they may not know how to help you process your feelings around it. A therapist, especially one who is trained on an issue like cognitive decline, can be there to listen and help you sort out your feelings on the subject.
There is even research out there that suggests that different forms of therapy may be able to slow some of the advancement of cognitive decline, including the use of arts therapy. While nothing is conclusive, the results seem to be generally positive, so it seems well worth giving a shot.
Loneliness
One of the most common issues faced by older adults is feelings of loneliness. Over 40% of older adults report feeling lonely at some point, which is far too many people who are dealing with feelings of isolation.
There are many reasons why someone might struggle with loneliness. As people age they tend to lose friends and family who they might have lived with or seen regularly. This of course leaves holes in one’s life that can be difficult to fill. And, even if there hasn’t yet been any significant losses, it’s not uncommon for older adults to not be as social as they once were. This might be due to feeling out of touch with the rest of society, or even like you’re invisible to others. Many older adults report feeling ignored by younger members of society, like they don’t matter.
Illness or poor mental health can also create feelings of loneliness by making it difficult to go out to social events due to fear or embarrassment.
Whatever the reason, a therapist can help you work through your feelings and offer tips to help you not only better manage your thoughts, but ideas on how you can become more social. While family and friends might encourage you to just “get out there,” they might not be able to offer the best advice on how to socialize in a way that feels comfortable to you. But, a therapist can speak to you about your concerns and help you find a way to spend time with others without pushing you too far past your comfort zone.
Mental Health
The National Library of Medicine tells us that over 20% of people over the age of 55 have some kind of mental health concern. This can range from conditions like depression and anxiety to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. While many mental health conditions, like the latter two, require medication to help an individual stabilize, all mental health conditions can be supported by also working with a therapist. A therapist can provide tools that can help an individual with a mental health problem better manage their symptoms, which can allow someone to take charge of their own life and focus on what makes them happy.
Some older adults might have been dealing with mental illness for quite some time, but it may show up more aggressively as you age. This might be due to changing habits, loneliness, retirement, or because your mind and body changes as you age, and symptoms that didn’t bother you as much when you were younger might be a bit harder to ignore these days.
Although the above points have already covered some benefits of therapy, they have mainly focused on some of the reasons an older adult might decide to seek out therapy in the first place. But for some people, they might feel like they already feel good, so why bother going to therapy in the first place?
Of course it’s wonderful if you already feel good, and there’s never any pressure to go to therapy if you aren’t interested, but there are many benefits to speaking with someone, even if there isn’t a particular problem that you feel you need to address. And everyone benefits from sharing their feelings, so sometimes just having a dedicated time to talk about yourself each week is reason enough to stick with the habit. But aside from that, let’s look at some of the great benefits that you may see from consistently seeing a therapist, whether for a particular reason or not.
Improve Relationships
Something that many people experience as a result of therapy is an improvement in their relationships with others. You see, even if you have good relationships with the people around you there’s a good chance you still have some people that you find tiring to be around, get into arguments with, or just feel like you have a hard time connecting with in the way you want to.
A therapist is someone who has been trained to help you work through your own behavior and patterns so that you can find ways to better navigate through difficult conversations or how to handle it when a subject is brought up that you feel uncomfortable discussing. A therapist can help you set boundaries or be more empathetic so that you can respect your own needs while also see where someone else is coming from.
Therapy can even help to improve relationships that are already good. You might love your grandchildren but feel like you have trouble connecting with them at times. A therapist can help guide you on ways to engage with them in ways that are more meaningful so that you can deepen those relationships.
And, if you are dealing with something really heavy and difficult, such as the loss of a loved one or mental illness, then therapy can help improve your relationship by giving you someone to talk to who is removed from your life. While it’s obviously important to talk about these issues with the people you love, they’re not always going to be properly equipped to help you with these serious issues, and going to them as your only source of support might put a strain on your relationship. A therapist is trained to be able to handle all of that heavy emotional work, so that hopefully it’s not being put on those around you. Instead you can find ways at therapy to talk about those issues with your loved ones in a healthier way, while also leaving space for other conversations and experiences. This can lift pressure off of relationships and lead to better quality time spent together.
Self-Care Techniques
We all know how important healthy eating, sleeping and exercise habits are, but what about self-care? While the term itself might be a little newer, the idea itself isn’t, and a lot of the techniques people might use to care for their emotional health have been employed for centuries.
Something we all learn as children is the idea of self-regulation. This means managing our emotions in a way that is appropriate for a situation. For example, as a toddler you might have screamed if you didn’t get what you wanted to eat for dinner, however, as you grew older you likely realized that doing so would not change what was on the table, and was very likely to end up in an undesirable consequence. Instead you learned to control that outburst and found ways to manage your disappointment.
Now, we all learn some form of self-regulation, but the reality is that many of us might have not learned the best ways of managing our feelings, even if it’s not apparent to the outside world. Some people deal with intense anger, sadness, and many other emotions, and can find it very difficult to shake those feelings off. Some might hold onto resentments for years, and, as they get older it might become more and more difficult to control your feelings. You might start feeling like that screaming toddler all over again.
A therapist can help you develop good self-regulation techniques so that your feelings don’t feel so overwhelming and you can focus on more important things. Every person is unique so there isn’t a one size fits all approach to self-regulation. You and your therapist can try out different things to find out what is the best fit for you in different situations, but here are a few techniques that people use to help them manage their emotional health.
- Meditation. Different forms are used all over the world to help people de-stress and better manage their emotions. Meditation is generally something that you would do every day in order to see a long-term impact on your health. Depending on what works for you that might look like anything from 2 minutes to an hour a day of meditation.
- Breathing exercises. Many people find that regular breathing exercises, especially after an intense situation, can help them calm down.
- Journaling. There’s been a lot of research that shows that writing down our experiences and emotions can give us an outlook and help us process what we’re feeling.
- Movement. Just as exercise is good for our bodies, it’s also good for our minds. Many people find exercise or any kind of movement, like stretching to be very helpful when it comes to moving through difficult moments.
This article was just a small list of some of the ways that therapy might be beneficial to you. There are countless other ways that people see therapy making a positive impact in their lives, so what are you waiting for? Try it out to see if it will make that same positive change for you.
