Preparing to be 80: Important Considerations for Psychiatry and Society

PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“Thinking about your trajectory of aging and how you can influence it, starting as early as possible, can make a difference in your year ahead regardless of your age.”

-Nathan Labrasseur, director of Mayo Clinic’s Robert and Arlene Koyod Center on Aging

Perhaps you noticed the scores of articles in mainstream media about turning 80 years old that came out early in 2026. I am now 79, the age of life expectancy in the United States. From that standpoint, living longer is a bonus. I am therefore also one of those turning 80 this year and think that the interest is because we are the first year of the post-World War II “Baby Boomers” generation. At its best, perhaps we have gained some useful wisdom.

Those of us boomers that have survived are probably grateful for the most part. What, though, might that also mean for others and geriatric psychiatry? For one thing, we will need more geriatric psychiatrists for loneliness, increased diagnostic evaluations, prolonged grief, and death anxiety, among other mental health challenges.

Erik Erikson’s last psychosocial stage of development has been that of late adulthood, titled “Integrity vs. Despair.” However, after he died, his wife Joan added another for extreme old age, the 80s and 90s, where revisiting earlier stages and crises is possible, perhaps at best by re-embracing the awe of childhood with the potential for spiritual transcendence.¹

The first point to make to younger individuals is that you likely have little idea what it will be like at age 80, and that is besides the rapid changes in society nowadays and whether you observed loved ones living to old age. Whether that ignorance is from denial or the difficulty of accurately projecting into the future, it is hard to imagine certain common aspects of aging, such as forgetting more things, unexpected and ongoing muscular-skeletal pain, numerous losses, and societal ageism.

Consequently, I am preparing a series of columns about these aging challenges. Tomorrow, International Remembrance Holocaust Day, will be on processing life’s traumas. Financial acumen is crucial, given that there usually becomes a time when one cannot make up financial needs or losses. Finances connect to whether to retire and when to do so. Another is lifelong learning and what may be especially important to review or learn. How should we prepare for dying psychologically, including using medical aid in dying? Lifestyle recommendations might include ice cream. There also is a not very well known societal “Rights of Aging” that were developed by, yes, Eva Peron in Argentina when she was in her 20s! I guess she was an exception to imagining the needs of old age.

Turning 80 can also be celebrated for what it symbolizes. It is a time to review life achievements, wisdom, relationships, and legacy. Although we will concentrate on psychiatric professionals growing older, there is much in common for anybody. Yes, there are many challenges, but also unique opportunities if one is blessed enough to live until 80.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

Reference

1. Erikson E, Erickson J. The Life Cycle Completed. W.W. Norton & Company; 1998.