Tag Archives: adulthood

The Changed Lines of Generational Power

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Bob Ritzema

I have been reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, who is a surgeon, a staff writer for the New Yorker, and a Harvard Professor. He’s a busy guy! His book explores how medical advances have changed aging and death, not … Continue reading →

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The Older I Get, The More Versions Of Me There Are

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Bob Ritzema

Rachel McAlpine, who blogs at Write Into Life, recently posted about the challenge of adjusting her identity as she ages. She writes, “I’ve been searching for an inherent personal coherence, consonance, or harmony. But this is not straightforward, because right … Continue reading →

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Identity, Purpose, and Belonging in Retirement

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

Older workers preparing for retirement (or those, like me, part way through the process)  deal not only with logistics and practical questions, but also with questions regarding how to live our lives. Three sets of issues that retirees face–issues of … Continue reading →

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When Your Adult Child Won’t Talk to You

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

“What to do when your grown child won’t talk to you?” asked a recent article at Next Avenue. The author, Jill Smolowe, states that she takes the following approach to close relationships: “For as long as I can remember, I’ve … Continue reading →

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Do You Need to Grieve Your Unfulfilled Expectations for an Adult Child?

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

As a therapist, I work regularly with people who are grieving some sort of loss. One of the most difficult losses handle is death of a child. Families used to be much larger than they are now and, prior to … Continue reading →

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Doing, Being, and the Flu

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

There is doing. . . and there is being. Sometimes we are in the doing mode. There are checklists of things to accomplish, requirements someone expects us to meet. We keep our noses to the grindstone, our eyes on the … Continue reading →

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What To Hope For Now?

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

On her blog “Everyone Has a Story,” Bird recently wrote about hope in midlife. She notes that in childhood, we all had hopes for what we would be when we grew up, in our twenties our hopes had to do … Continue reading →

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Friendships: Who Stays and Who Goes

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

I wrote earlier about how friendships change over the years. After our children leave home and we retire (or just work less), most of us have more time to spend with friends. When we reach that point, some of us reconnect … Continue reading →

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Midlife Complexity to Late Life Simplicity

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

I wrote in an earlier post that the main psychological challenge of late adulthood is simplification. In middle adulthood, many of us had more complexity in our lives than we had ever had before. At work we took on more responsibility … Continue reading →

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What is the Primary Psychological Task of Late Adulthood?

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

Psychologists usually view human development as consisting of a series of tasks or issues, each of which must be dealt with in turn. Thus infancy is about learning to trust, adolescence about independence and identity, and early adulthood about intimacy. … Continue reading →

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