Therapists' preference

My T says that he has had many clients who come to him in middle age ready for help, ready to change, ready to work things out. It is like after 40 years or more they finally reached their limit on being unhappy or dysfunctional or whatever. I see this in myself. Even though things were not good when I was younger, I still was "handling it" on my own, although probably not well--more like holding it together rather than changing in a positive direction. I do sometimes wish I had gone to therapy when I was younger, but I also know that back then I still hadn't had my fill yet of the way I and my life was. I hadn't been unhappy for enough years to have the same sense of desperation (and motivation). I know this is certainly not universal, and there are many younger clients who are desperate or ready for change, but I am pretty sure I am not the only middle-aged client in my T's practice who fits this description! In this sense, I think working with younger clients would be very challenging. I think it takes a T with a special inclination to focus on those younger years.

I can see this would be very rewarding (if one is good at it). I also think it could be very rewarding to work with elderly clients--help them with a "last chance" at happiness or to resolve things before it is too late. Very rewarding.

ECHOES, this is an interesting question you have asked. Maybe we can all ask our Ts what age group they prefer to work with and why, and then report back here? I would love to hear all the answers. ECHOES, do you know if your T has an age group she prefers to work with?

not me. If T would rather work with young people, I'd rather not know. It would only aggravate the burden I stagger under of having grown up the "less preferred child", and my feelings of therapy-futility due to age, both of which are already problematic

Doesn't PC have a polling feature? Why not put it there instead?

I would think that some of the answer would have to do with the age of the therapist and how long they'd been in practice. Because of lack of life experience, I don't know that young adults are going to be real great with depth therapy; there's not enough there to change yet. If people have a problem with their childhood, their age at working with those problems wouldn't matter since the problems would be affecting each of them pretty equally from that earlier time but an older adult would probably have more natural experience working with themselves than a younger one might who is just coming to understand they have a problem. It's kind of how older people have a greater vocabulary than younger just by the fact they have lived longer.

http://www.temple.edu/instituteondis...aacvocabulary/

Lol when you said that I automatically thought of that one grandpa in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory... you know the one that wants to try all the candies..

I have noticed that some people are very well suited to working with older folks.