Working with seniors is very rewarding, especially that I specialized in GeroPsychology in my raining years and had the pleasure of working with such a population facing challenges in advanced age of health and physical limitations, or just natural age-related changes.

The fact we are living longer, such challenges are more and more common and we continue to learn how to make the needed adjustment and therapy can be very helpful in processing such a wonderful change.

Over the past 21 years, I had the pleasure of working with patients across the lifespan of mixed ages and that helped me become an even better GeroPsychologist helping patties navigate through the stages of life as well as a generalist therapist helping people of various age span.

Online psychotherapy has proven to be effective for seniors as well other younger population of all ages as it made treatment more widely available at the finger tips and most common devices.

Especially for seniors, the treatment became accessible for those living away from treatment centers, not wanting to drive long or even short distance unnecessarily. The treatment became easily accessible that many patients became less resistant to treatment, less pressure and bypassing stigma that still exist about such treatment.

The ease and efficacy of treatment were encouraging to both patients and healthcare providers alike as productivity and improvement surged in such domain of platform of connection.

In my education and training, my focus was on understating and helping mostly seniors with rounded training of patients across the lifespan. Working with seniors, I managed to work on adjustment issues of retirement, marriages and divorces, empty nesting transitions, health impacted couples, and cognitive screening and differentiation of depression vs dementia. Grown children’s issues, as seniors’ job raising kids does not stop at times in old age, as in parents stepping in to help their grandchildren when the offspring face challenges of their own. Working across generations was rewarding in navigating such challenges, in light of adjusting to life and aging changes.

My approach to therapy is very simple, meeting patients at their level to facilitate processing of their distress. At times, distress in not present but challenges navigating changes and transitions with the hope of improving the quality of life and further insight and understanding of changes taking place. I find cognitive processing and cognitive-behavior therapy to be helpful and simple in addressing such changes. Understanding the circumstances and how we try to cope with that, with insight and commitment to behavioral changes, we can progress slightly easier. Reminisce approach to treatment with seniors often facilitates such understanding and alleviates the pressure of stagnation as one reflects on life-long achievements. At times, adjustment of the therapy approaches is necessary to meet patients at their level of stress or reflection and treatment is tailored o fit their needs.

After 21 years of practice now in 2024, when I am asked “what inspired you to become a therapist” kind of questions, it seems secondary to the better question of what keeps you energetic practicing all those years and doing more not less. The rewarding nature of helping others can be a gift at times that keeps growing.

It started there as seeing my helping nature and my choice to pursue that on a higher educational level and in more professional settings.

The progress and positive response of my patients to my treatment fuels my energy daily and serves as role modeling sometimes when I stay healthy and doing more work as I grow older myself reflecting productivity. The wisdom I am gaining living through my patients’ challenges, make me a better person and a much more effective provider.

I have been fortunate to be in this part of the world, born in Middle East, and privileged with a chance to living in Japan for a few years before settling in Florida. Married for over 30 years now with two grown children, I grew as a husband and as a parent and been through life challenges and development stages.

Seeing my own parents and siblings grow older and losing several of them over the years, helped me better understand the challenges we face as we mature in life. Seeing my own kids grow and flourish, I am able to relate across lifespan development within my own family.

I enjoy working with people of all ages, especially seniors in ongoing counseling with the hope of improving the quality of life and I am always rewarded as I see progress with my patients.

I have been fortunate to be in this part of the world, born in Middle East, and privileged with a chance to living in Japan for a few years before settling in Florida.