Retirement Issues Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Retirement Issues

With the life expectancy in the United Kingdom beyond the three score and ten for men and women (78.5 and 80 years old respectively) the fact that we are living longer, have greater disposable financial resources, and better quality of life makes the prospect of retirement open up into a vast panorama of another two decades on the horizon.

Without the necessary planning and reflection on how this stage of life is going to be lived: i.e. meaningfully, successfully, and to what purpose, clients find the vast amount of time without the structure that the work day provide something of a conundrum.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Retirement

When a client comes for help with problems related to the end of this stage of life which has been primarily work focused a series of diagnostic tests help determine whether there are the clinical symptoms associated with anxiety/and or depression are present, and personality tests (Myers Briggs, Type A/B questionnaire).

The first part of the treatment is designed to bring those symptoms associated with stress into the normal range, and write a problem list of the things they would like to develop/change as a result of counselling.

In the second phase of treatment clients write a narrative, on their life stages up to the present time. This includes their personal qualities: -

Knowledge gained (both academic and general)
Skill sets acquired over a lifetime
What they have learned in the university of life that is uniquely their own

Clients often live such inordinately busy lives juggling work/home and social lives that there has been little time to understand the journey already traversed. Before planning the next part of their life-goals an understanding of their personality type is essential to live in a way that is true to themself.

Carl Jung wrote that there are four stages to man:-

1. Athletic Tarzan type male stage
2. Merchant, or business man
3. Man of letters (philosopher, artist, poet etc.)
4. Spiritual man

While none of these categories are mutually exclusive each stage of life requires thoughtful planning and expertise if it is to be lived to the fullest. Meaning/purpose does not remain constant and has to be redefined at each stage of life. What was important at thirty can seem obsolete after fifty. Goals change, and to achieve that perfect sense of fit requires professional support and planning.

Three separate goal sets come into place in CBT. Short, medium and long term life aims are focused on. The classic one and five year life plans are written and, when necessary training for career change is implemented.