Let Me Help Improve Your Self and Your Relationships
Dr. Venus Masselam has the knowledge and experience to provide individual, couples, marriage and family, and adults and adolescent counseling services.
My sessions can either be in individual or group settings.
What I Do
I help clarify the issues you are struggling with and suggest what might need to change to help you attain your goals. These include:
What I Do
I help clarify the issues you are struggling with and suggest what might need to change to help you attain your goals. These include:
Gerontologist like myself have been working hard to update the mental health field’s knowledge of this longest life stage.
It was only at the beginning of the 21st century that the importance of social relationships and contact have become associated with better physical health and healing as well as improved mental health. Relationships have moved front and center even in increasing longevity. Loneliness is no longer seen as an expected aspect of aging rather just as with depression at this sage measures’ should be taken to mitigate loneliness. In fact, loneliness is now recognized as adding to mental and physical problems while research indicates that relationships are beneficial to mental and physical health.
Besides stressing family relationships, the importance of friendships’ should be maintained and emphasized. Friendships are an important factor in every stage of life.
I work with clients to accept the fact that physical, mental and cognitive, and relationship changes will occur as they age. We will look at new adaptive behaviors needed to offset the sense of loss and increased anxiety that goes along with these changes.
1. Assess current functioning level.
2. Decide what needs to change.
3. Consider opportunities and obstacles present leading to one’s goal.
4. Define and implement changes need to reach one’s goal.
In an attempt to describe the developmental tasks that individuals in the mid-20th century faced; Evelyn Duvall suggested a model with eight stages. The eighth and final stage she defined was: retirement and death.
It was quite limiting for a stage of life that could last more than 25 years, since baby boomers’ longevity in the longest developmental life stage will impact families, businesses, and the entire contextual fabric of our world. These are all far beyond the tasks of retirement and death.
People must consider how increased life expectancy can be far more complex and impact more than just that individual.
Psychotherapists should ask themselves how they will support their clients and colleagues as they gain awareness about the challenges and rewards that they may face during this latter stage of life. For the past years, I have had the good fortune to help create a certificate program in aging at the Washington School of Psychiatry.
I learned that it is not enough to understand one’s developmental stage without having a greater perspective of the entire life span as well as how each stage is connected. In my practice as a family therapist, I have incorporated the older adult stage as part of my understanding of human development. This is demanded of all of us in the mental health profession.
Over the years, I have learned that it is a stage with an extended singular journey that need not be traveled alone.
Most friendships are achieved through meeting, sharing, and being heard. A cross-sex friendship (CSF) is voluntary, nonfamilial, and nonromantic relationship between a male and a female who have a verbal agreement of friendship.
CSF provides unique benefits along with a different mirror than same-sex friendships (SSF). Research indicates that women prefer CSF as they offer insight into what the other sex thinks, feels, and behaves.
On the other hand, men displayed no such preference. This shows that they do not value friendship as much as women do. Men preferred to replace a spouse rather than develop friendships.
An emphasis on CSF is inadequate in our society. Adults limit themselves unnecessarily, therefore losing an insider's perspective to gender differences.
Two generic benefits for CSF and SSF are social support along with affirmation and affection, as well as protection against loneliness.
"If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go with others." - African Proverb
Baby boomers (also the sandwich generation) are searching for new ways, with their children and their parents, to approach their developmental stage. There need to be programs that promote a much-needed dialogue about the aging process and the benefits of friendship.
Although families are expected to care for their older relatives, friends offer something that they cannot. Harvard University's recent newsletter indicates that older adults with more social support are healthier, happier, and live longer.
There should be societal responsibility for producing good friendships through education and models.
The comfort of sharing with friends outweighs a visit from a grandchild. Woods and Robertson’s research findings suggest that, "one good friend is more comforting than a dozen grandchildren.” Older adults can support one another in the task of staying connected to life rather than detaching in the face of death.
Barriers exist against friendships, especially CSFs. Most barriers come from one's own social network, but physical losses can result in the greatest barrier. A community is necessary to protect the older adult from loneliness and assist their children in helping their parents age successfully.
Individuals, Couples, Families & Groups
Baby boomers are searching for new ways, with their children and their parents, to approach their developmental stage. There need to be programs that promote a much-needed dialogue about the aging process and the benefits of friendship.
"If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go with others." - African Proverb