# Retirement, Identity and the Experience of Ageing

Blog 

Mental Health Health & Wellbeing 

By Guest Blog

16th October 2026

***With thanks to our member, David Boyd-Carrigan, for this article.***

Retirement is often described as a positive life transition: an opportunity to rest, travel, pursue interests and enjoy greater freedom. Yet for some, the approach of retirement can also bring elements of uncertainty, loss and a profound questioning of identity.

“Anna”, a woman in her mid-sixties, sought counselling several months before her planned retirement. She described feeling persistently low, increasingly tired and lethargic, and less motivated than usual. She had begun withdrawing from social activities and found herself questioning the value of things she had previously enjoyed. Although she did not describe herself as severely depressed, she felt that “ … something was gradually disappearing”.

Initially, Anna attributed her feelings to the prospect of having “nothing to do”. However, as our work progressed, it became apparent that retirement represented something considerably more complex. Her employment had provided a clear structure, regular social contact, competence and, importantly, a sense of identity. She had worked in the same professional environment for the majority of her working life and had derived considerable satisfaction from being experienced and knowledgeable. Retirement therefore threatened not simply the loss of employment but the loss of the familiar version of herself.

From a person-centred perspective, I was particularly interested in creating a space in which Anna could explore these feelings without being encouraged prematurely towards a more positive interpretation of retirement. Rather than treating her apprehension as something to be corrected, we explored what retirement meant to her personally. This helped reveal an important tension: she simultaneously wanted greater freedom and feared the loss of purpose that freedom might bring.

Elements of cognitive and behavioural work were also useful. We identified some increasingly negative assumptions, including the belief that ageing meant becoming less relevant, less capable and less interesting. These thoughts appeared to reinforce her withdrawal and low mood. Gradually, Anna began experimenting with activities that were not associated to productivity or professional achievement. She also began reconnecting with friendships that had been neglected during her working life.

One significant development was Anna's recognition that she had spent much of her life measuring herself through achievement. Retirement initially appeared threatening because it removed many of the external measures by which she evaluated her self-worth. Our work moved beyond the question of “What will I do when I retire?” towards the more fundamental question, “Who am I when I am no longer defined by what I do?''.

The counselling process also taught me something about the assumptions I brought into the room. I had initially understood Anna's fear largely in terms of loss: loss of routine, status, colleagues and professional identity. She helped me see that ageing can involve something more subtle - the changing relationship between time and possibility.

At one point, Anna reflected that when she was younger, she had experienced time as something more abundant and almost invisible. As she approached retirement, she experienced time different way. She described it not simply as “less time”, but as time becoming more noticeable. This led her to reconsider how she wanted to spend it. Retirement, she suggested, was frightening partly because “you suddenly realise that your time belongs to you”.

This became one of the most valuable insights I took from the work. Anna taught me that ageing need not be understood exclusively through the language of decline. Awareness of time can also produce greater intentionality. The knowledge that life is finite can make choices more meaningful rather than less.

She offered me another important perspective when she observed that she had spent years trying to “keep up with life”, whereas retirement might offer the opportunity to “keep pace with myself”. This distinction became an important therapeutic metaphor. Recovery did not require Anna to return to the person she had been before retirement. Instead, it involved developing a more compassionate relationship with the person she was becoming.

By the end of our work, Anna's mood had improved and she reported a greater confidence about retirement. Her concerns had not disappeared, nor was this the objective. Rather, she was able to hold uncertainty alongside anticipation. She had begun developing relationships, interests and routines that were not dependent upon her professional identity.

For me, the work reinforced the importance of approaching later-life transitions without assumptions. The therapeutic task is not necessarily to persuade a client that ageing or retirement is positive. It is to create sufficient space for the client to discover what these experiences mean for them. In Anna's case, that process revealed that retirement was not simply an ending. It was an invitation to reconsider how identity, purpose and time might be understood.

Perhaps most importantly, the client reminded the counsellor that ageing is not merely something we observe in others. It is a human experience towards which we are all moving. In that sense, the therapy room became not only a place in which Anna explored her future, but a place in which I was invited to reconsider my own assumptions about it.