There’s an overlooked annual holiday on August 21: National Senior Citizens Day. The goal of this holiday, first made official in the United States in 1988, is to increase awareness about the many complex issues that impact older adults. The fact that this holiday is rarely acknowledged demonstrates that increasing awareness remains an important, ongoing goal. 

Increasing awareness and support for aging Americans is especially urgent given the aging US population. As the birth rate declines and the Baby Boomer generation ages and lives longer than previous generations, the average age in the US is now 39, and it’s anticipated that by 2040, nearly 1 in 5 Americans will be 65 or older. This aging population has major implications for the US healthcare system, the workforce, and social programs like Social Security. 

But aging isn’t just complex on a system level. It’s complex for us as individuals, too! 

Fortunately, evidence-based therapy available at Aviva Psychology Services can help aging individuals navigate common challenges and transitions with support and skill, understand and prevent negative impacts on mental health, and find a sense of stability and wellness. Whether aging has resulted in a need for therapy to process grief, treat chronic pain, navigate changes in relationships or family dynamics, or come to terms with new forms of disability and chronic illness, Aviva Psychology Services can help. 

Common Challenges As We Age

Aging comes with many gifts, such as broader perspective, cumulative life experience, and a strong sense of self. However, aging also comes with particular challenges. Some common challenges that can impact quality of life as we age include:

1. Increased Disability: As we age, we are more likely to experience disability from illness, injury, or the realities of aging. The CDC reports that among Americans aged 65 or older, approximately 50% report living with a significant disability such as serious difficulty with hearing, vision, memory, mobility, or ability to live independently.
   
   
2. Increased Health Difficulties: Over our lifetimes, chronic health conditions also become a more common experience. In fact, the National Council on Aging reported in 2022 that 94% of adults over the age of 60 have at least one chronic health condition. 
   
   
3. Cognitive Changes: Aging also involves changes in our ability to think, remember, and make decisions. Normal aging includes some difficulty with forgetfulness, but as we age we are also at much higher risk for conditions like Alzheimer's Disease, dementia, and other types of cognitive decline.
   
   
4. Social Isolation: Living to a more advanced age also comes with losses of social connection. Sometimes this happens from overall positive life experiences, like retirement. However, we can also become more isolated due to divorce, children moving away as they become adults, the deaths of family members and friends, and due to the burdens of health conditions.
   
   
5. Financial Hardship: Many older adults live on a fixed retirement income, but the cost of housing, healthcare, and general life experiences like groceries keeps increasing. Navigating the realities of a limited income in an increasingly expensive society is a significant challenge and source of stress for many aging Americans.
   
   
6. Loss of Independence: Aging comes with many transitions, some of which involve the loss of our ability to do things independently. No longer being able to do tasks like driving, home maintenance, cooking, or bathing is an upsetting, challenging experience for many older adults. 

How Aging Impacts Mental Health

Psychology research is clear that aging adults face increased and unique mental health challenges. In fact, research suggests that 25% of older adults experience difficulties with their mental health. Many of those difficulties are directly related to the six challenges described above. For example: 

1. Increased Disability: Experiencing new forms of disability is associated with a significant increase in mental health concerns, including stress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Additionally, experiencing disability later in life often poses the challenge of confronting internalized ableism. Internalized ableism refers to beliefs we are taught by society and that lead to negative views of disability and disabled people, including ourselves.
   
   
2. Increased Health Difficulties: Health difficulties come with stress, uncertainty, and often both physical and psychological suffering. All of these experiences directly impact our mental health and increase the chances of experiencing depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, chronic pain, and more.
   
   
3. Cognitive Changes: As our mind’s abilities change, so does our mental health. When our mental abilities change, it causes increases in stress and decreases in self-esteem. After all, it’s very upsetting when things that once felt easy are suddenly difficult. Cognitive changes and mental health can also have a cyclical relationship. For example, depression can impair our memory, and memory problems due to aging can be upsetting and lead to depression. 
   
   
4. Social Isolation: Humans are social creatures who thrive in relationships with others. The isolation that is experienced by aging adults is strongly associated with experiences of dementia, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. As we age and experience more deaths of our same-age peers, we also experience increased grief.
   
   
5. Financial Hardship: The stress of financial instability is profound, and the mental health impacts of inadequate resources is, too. The fewer financial resources a person has, the more vulnerable they are to a cycle of stress, physical suffering, and psychological suffering that self-perpetuates.
   
   
6. Loss of Independence: Losing our ability to complete tasks independently is a profound fear for many, and experiencing it comes with intense feelings of grief and self-judgement. Sometimes, there is also relationship conflict with family, friends, or healthcare providers who intervene and say that we cannot or should not do tasks that we were once able to do. Overall, loss of independence increases risk for stress, anxiety, grief, depression, and relationship conflict.

How Therapy Supports Aging

Therapy cannot change a person’s physical reality, such as their fixed income or medical conditions. However, therapy can provide support, insight, and practical skills for navigating difficult transitions in life, including all those experienced while aging. Therapy can take many different forms to meet your specific needs. 

For example, if you are experiencing loss of ability or loss of relationships while aging, you may benefit from therapy that addresses grief. As explained in this Aviva blog post, grief is a complex experience that can be persistent and devastating to our overall quality of life. Helping clients navigate grief and loss is also a specialty at Aviva Psychology Services. 

If you are experiencing increased disability or experiencing disability for the first time, you may benefit from therapy that can help you process your new reality and identity, challenge unhelpful, ableist beliefs you might be wrestling with, and embrace disability pride. As explained in our Disability Pride Month blog post, psychological research shows that those who have higher levels of disability acceptance and disability pride experience more resilience and less mental health difficulty. Aviva Psychology Services offers a specialty Disability & Chronic Illness Clinic staffed by psychologists with expertise in this domain. 

If aging has resulted in chronic pain, therapy can assist via state-of-the-art, evidence-based interventions like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. You can read more about both those therapy approaches in this blog post, and Aviva even offers a Chronic Pain Specialty Clinic staffed by psychologists with specialized training and expertise in helping clients navigate chronic pain.

Insomnia is yet another common outcome of aging. While incredibly frustrating to experience, insomnia is also highly treatable via Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i). CBT-i is considered the gold-standard, frontline treatment for insomnia, even outperforming medications. Psychologists at Aviva have extensive training in CBT-i, and you can read more about what to expect in CBT-i via the Aviva blog post about insomnia or by visiting the Insomnia Specialty Clinic webpage. 

Last but not least, aging sometimes creates barriers to transportation and mobility that make traveling to in-person therapy challenging. Aging can also result in medical conditions that increase risk of serious outcomes from airborne illness, making in-person therapy a physical danger. Aviva Psychology Services offers all services, including specialty clinic services, via telehealth. Therefore, you can access high-quality therapy from the safety and comfort of your home. 

Getting Started In Therapy

Aging can feel isolating, frightening, complicated, and like you’re suddenly out of your depth after years of feeling capable and competent. Fortunately, you don’t have to go through it alone, and there are evidence-based therapies available to help. 

At Aviva Psychology Services, therapy for aging adults will be trauma-informed and specifically tailored to each unique client’s needs, preferences, goals, abilities, and readiness. Psychologists at Aviva are trained to help you develop a customized treatment plan that allows you to learn skills you want and to help build a life that feels meaningful and empowered, even while you go through complicated life transitions.

You can get connected with a psychologist who has expertise and experience working with aging adults by filling out the Request an Appointment form.

Selected References and Additional Reading:

1. Carpenter, B. D., Gatz, M., & Smyer, M. A. (2022). Mental health and aging in the 2020s. American Psychologist, 77(4), 538.
   
   
2. Fact Sheet: Aging in the United States - Population Reference Bureau. (2026, January 21). Population Reference Bureau. https://www.prb.org/resource/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united-states/ 
   
   
3. Gharib, M., Borhaninejad, V., & Rashedi, V. (2024). Mental health challenges among older adults. Adv Med Psychol Public Health, 1(3), 106-107.
   
   
4. Laidlaw, K., & Pachana, N. A. (2009). Aging, mental health, and demographic change: Challenges for psychotherapists. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40(6), 601. 
   
   
5. Rao, T. S., & Shaji, K. S. (2007). Demographic aging: Implications for mental health. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 49(2), 78-80.
   
   
6. Silberman, S. (2022, April 21). Equity and the Costs of Chronic Disease: Who’s Impacted the Most? Ncoa.org. https://www.ncoa.org/article/the-inequities-in-the-cost-of-chronic-disease-why-it-matters-for-older-adults