Thinking about and Planning for Retirement

The subject of retirement has only recently been specifically addressed in the field of psychotherapy. This is even more the case regarding the retirement of practitioners themselves. In order to address this issue, and as a result of various developments within the British Association of Psychotherapists since 2003, courses have been held for counsellors and therapists who want to think about, as well as to plan, this difficult but essential phase in life. What follows is an account of their development.

Four well-publicized courses have now taken place, each planned as a safe place; a forum in which participants would feel able to discuss their feelings about what this new phase in life would mean to them. It was hoped that this would enable them to share their fears, conflicts and hopes with others approaching this same stage and also preparing to negotiate the ending of their working lives.

There was a supposition that a considerable need existed in the wider psychotherapeutic/counselling community for a place to think with others about retirement. This was borne out by the number of applicants for the first course, by their eagerness to attend and from their stated hopes for the course.

Format of the Courses

Meetings have been held on three Saturday mornings with some weeks between each. Three members of BAP, from the Jungian and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy sections, have been course leaders and group facilitators. At the beginning of each morning one of them has presented a paper on a theme. Group discussion in small and/or large groups has followed, the mornings ending with a summing up. The initial tone has been set by the content of the papers which were highly personal and based on the experiences of the speakers themselves. Although not conceived of as a therapy group, it was thought helpful to allow for as much self-disclosure as needed. To this end, courses were planned to be