aging – retirement

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Aging – Retirement and Mental Health Trinity Counseling Anthony P. Montez

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Page 1: Aging – Retirement

Aging – Retirement and Mental Health

Trinity CounselingAnthony P. Montez

Page 2: Aging – Retirement

Contrast between East and West Views of Aging and Death

East• The individual’s self, life, and death

is placed within the process of the human experience.

• The personal experience blends with the universal.

• Life and death are familiar and intertwined.

• Death is welcomed as a relief from suffering, a step upward to join ancestors, a passage to another reincarnation, or a release from the eternal cycle achieved through enlightenment.

West• Death is considered to be outside

the process of the human experience.

• To be a self (a person) one must be alive, in control, and aware of what is happening.

• The emphasis of Individuality and Control makes death an outrage, a tremendous affront to humans rather than the logical and necessary process of old life making way for new.

Page 3: Aging – Retirement

Obsolete, Flawed Social Theories in the American Experience

• Social Darwinism Survival of the Fittest (Herbert

Spencer) A person’s value is measured by their productivity and contribution. Failure was evidence that a person was not among the fittest rather than failure being a consequence of overwhelming social forces.

• Disengagement Theory Older people and society mutually withdraw from each other as part of normal aging, and that this withdrawal is characterized by psychological well-being on the part of the older person.

Page 4: Aging – Retirement

Aging, Retirement, and Research.• Prior to 1950 very little

research existed on aging. • By the 1990s The National

Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) undertook collaborative studies involving separate academic disciplines and medial specialties over a period of 11 years.

• The NIMH findings show that much of what had been called aging is actually disease.

Page 5: Aging – Retirement

Five Popular Aging Myths

1. A person is “old” based on their chronological age.

2. The belief that old people are “senile”.

3. The Tranquility Myth.4. Myth of Unproductivity5. Old people are

resistant to change.

Page 6: Aging – Retirement

Research and Healthy Aging

• Activity Theory: The most agreeable psychological climate for older people is to remain active as long as they possibly can.

• When an activity or association must be given up, substitutes should be found.

• An older person’s personality is a key element in shaping reactions to biological and social changes – an active rather than passive role is important for mental health and satisfaction.

Page 7: Aging – Retirement

Things to Consider• The institution of retirement is

barely 100 years old and is a result of a vast number of people living longer.

• Many people will spend 20 years or more in retirement.

• The United States lacks structured and meaningful rites for retirement. This tends to create anomic nonparticipation of many people in American life.

• Stay Active, Replace activities as activities are discontinued, Get regular medical check-ups, take care of your health.

Page 8: Aging – Retirement

Some Special Characteristics of Older People

• Desire to leave a legacy• The Elder Function• Attachment to Familiar

Objects• Changes is the Sense of

Time• Sense of the Life Cycle

Page 9: Aging – Retirement

Other Things to Consider

Page 10: Aging – Retirement

Maria and Tony Maria and Tony Wedding Day 30th Anniversary 1983 2003

Page 11: Aging – Retirement

A Fifty-Year Perspective of changes in the medical and social parameters that enframe the patient and health care provider relationship. 1950 – 2000

• Chronic diseases became overwhelmingly the most common cause of death and most frequent reason for seeking medical care, displacing infections and other acute diseases.

• Access to health care came to be considered a right. Most western nation (but not the United States) provided universal access to care.

• The “therapeutic revolution” took place, grounded on progressively greater knowledge of medical science. Technological advance became a driving force.

• The cost of medical care rose worldwide. Economic and legal forces became increasingly important, frequently displacing moral determinants.

• The organization and financing of the delivery of medical services changed. Fee-for-service medicine withered and physicians increasingly became employees of medical care organizations, were paid according to predetermined fee schedules, or received a capitated rate. The political and social power of physicians shrank.

• Physicians’ performance was increasingly measured by evidence-based, process, or outcome guidelines.

• The bioethics movement arose in the 1960s and became an influential voice.

Cassell, E. J. (2000). The Principles of the Belmont Report Revisited. Hastings Center Report, 30(4), 12-21.

• The relationship between patient and physician shifted. Consumerism and ideas such as patient-centered medicine became commonplace. The public became knowledgeable about medicine and medical science.

• The form and content of medical education changed little, although the curriculum was updated to reflect advances in medical science.

The surrounding society was also in flux: • The social unrest and antiwar protests of the 1960s

challenged the social structure of the nation and accompanied a decreased respect for government and authority in general.

• Rights movements came to prominence-civil rights, women’s rights, patients’ rights, disability rights, and gay rights.

• Pride in ethnicity and diversity and a still greater emphasis on individualism made the “melting pot” metaphor of the United States obsolete.

• Computers and, latterly, the Internet widely disseminated information that was previously available only to professionals.

• The power of the law and financial incentives to influence social behavior and professional relationships increased, overwhelming the established moral order. The bottom line became the bottom line.

• The gap between the rich and the poor grew steadily.