A NEW HORIZON?
Retirement is usually at best treated as the end of an employment and a bit of a party. Everyone acting on the assumption that that here comes a well earned extended holiday. A reasonable assumption. Yet, for example, many retirees end up having a heart attack shortly after retiring. The space of retirement often becomes, both before and after retirement, a threat that is not talked about and certainly not planned for (other than financially). As a counsellor who has previously been in business I have never come across any employer with an active retirement preparation policy.
RETIREMENT IS A NEW SPACE
In Counselling and Psychotherapeutic terms space is what we work with: space represents opportunity. It can also, and usually does, bring a sense of threat to clients. Opportunity can mean change and change is often threatening: being asked to do something differently or having it imposed, e.g: retirement, creates anxiety and the discomfort of Cortisol. The irony of retirement is that the perception generally is that it is a long awaited nirvana and yet when we get past the ‘holiday’ phase we are confronted by this space. Spaces which can contain challenging end of life thoughts.
USING THE SPACE FOR FULFILLMENT
As a counsellor my work is to help clients create meaning. Retirement can end up being a traumatic experience. Individual lives and relationships can be turned upside down by this new dynamic.
Space to me as a counsellor represents an opportunity to be worked with during this significant adjustment from being controlled in a working life, not having free choices, to a space within which we are free to do what we like.
I work with clients to help plan this stage of life so that it can be planned and enjoyed from the end of that retirement party.
Recent Comments