Age was used to advantage by my former T who was 70. I never expected to or wanted to live past 30. When I was approaching 35, i felt old. I told him that. He said I was young. I couldn't argue with someone twice my age, who completed his PhD before I was born.

My current T is 12 years older than me, and that's fine too. She reminds me frequently that she's been around longer than I have, and when I get difficult she'll use her age and professional standing to pull rank on me.

I've had clients who were older than me, too. And connected just fine. My internship was a geropsych placement. I've also been told that I'm too old for youth to connect with - that was by a supervisor at a residential treatment facility where I was line staff, and the supervisor said I would never be able to move up or advance because I was too old (still less than 40 - age-based discrimination isn't illegal until you're over 40). It was hurtful, and marked the end of my being able to work there (especially since it resulted in dissociated driving and crashing my car and having no transportation for a while), but I talked to some of the youth about age and connection, and they all said that they needed mother-figures, not just peer-figures. And now I'm working with youth again.