In Search of the Golden Thread
Retirement a Psychological Journey
Photo by Wendy Wei
By Sterling M. Hawkins, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW
Originally written November 2023
“The initial touch of the golden thread is always attended by a certain kind of feeling. Experience will bring trust in that touch and the feeling that accompanies it, familiar recognition at its emergence.”
—Stephen Buhner
In less than a month I will be leaving an organization where I’ve spent the last 30 years of my professional life. The moment that I imagined over the years is now weeks away. I experience it as a traveler who has lived in one city and grown accustomed to its people and, its culture. As an inhabitant of this city to leave it is to become once more a foreigner, an emigrant.
For most, this is a significant life event and ranks alongside life events like graduation, marriage, and becoming a parent. My story is not unique. It has caused me to revisit who I am, and what I do outside the context of the workplace. While the type of work I perform can be done outside of the workplace, my attachment to it is felt more poignantly as I discard material work policies, print files, and publications that have outlived their usefulness. The events of the past week reverberate in my mind. My last joint-home visit with a colleague, being informed of my successor, and a small retirement luncheon at the behest of several coworkers.
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What I hope to convey in this piece are the psychological and emotional effects associated with detachment, and identity when explored through the lens of retirement from the workplace and a long professional career. I will examine this experiential process over the next several months defined by 3 Phases:
1. Respite- A short period of rest and relief from something difficult
2. Reformation- The act or process of changing and improving something
3. Reconciliation- A process of making two different ideas and facts exist or be true at the same time
R E S P I T E
Letting go for me is hard because I’ve been with the same organization for such a long time. New social work employees entering the Social Work profession today have more career opportunities than I did when I graduated in the late 1980s.
Factors that determine longevity in agency-based practice for younger social workers who entered the profession within the last 10 years may correlate with their age and social demographics making it easier for them to transition between jobs than it was when I entered the profession in the early 1990s. (Salsberg, 2020)
That being said, the effect of my age (over 60) combined with 3 decades in the same agency has created a sense of shortsightedness that I must now learn to navigate.
In addition to working full-time, I have maintained a solo practice, concurrently for the past 12 years. My solo practice has been dwarfed by work within the agency. This is a “first”. And, as with all firsts, one becomes aware of how certain environmental factors impact the psyche.
As I prepare to enter the Respite phase, I am entering a period where I will slow down and relax certain boundaries and expectations designed to meet the needs of the workplace and focus instead on activities that I have devoted little attention to or neglected completely. This should be a period marked by the rediscovery of familiar interests and activities I enjoy. I plan to read more, write more, and spend more time cycling. For retirees entering this phase several questions may be helpful with the transition:
How will my use of time affect my relationship with others (spouse, adult children, other family, friends, and acquaintances?
What activities and hobbies will require a sustained financial investment (travel, vacationing, purchases)?
How will I manage disenchantment and disillusionment when my “to-do list” gets shorter and I run out of things to occupy my time?
For retirees who are in relatively good health, and who have prepared for retirement, managing disenchantment and disillusionment should be short-lived.
I am less concerned with running out of things to do than I am with the impact my retirement will have on my relationships with others. And, less income, which will force me to sacrifice some conveniences that I’ve grown accustomed to —like online book purchases and journal subscriptions, maintaining my bikes, and dining out.
Because I’ve spent time thinking about post-retirement activities and how I envision my time will be used, disenchantment and disillusionment should be kept at a minimum. I also have a realistic sense of my skills. And, how my age, interests, and the context in which they occur, influence the type of people, activities, and environments that I seek out.
I will miss working with some of my soon-to-be former clients with whom I have had a long professional relationship. The absence of those relationships at times does create an emotional void in the same way it does with some colleagues.
Because the majority of my clients are significantly older, and some are in poor health, I wonder what will become of them. And, how their story will end. Will they be able to procure the resources that they need from someone else? How will my clients experience my retirement?
I manage these thoughts by communicating to some clients (where I think the therapeutic relationship is significant) what they should expect when our work together has ended and reassuring them and their families that others like myself will pick up where I leave off. I provide them with the name and contact information of my replacement and remind them that they can consult with other staff in the program.
I attempt in this process to acknowledge my own emotions through self-reflection. I remind myself that our work together is temporary and that the client’s work will continue in alternative ways. I reflect on the client’s accomplishments and challenges yet to be attained. I allow myself space to reflect on what went well during my work with clients, and when there was failure. Finally, I remind myself and the client that problem resolution is ongoing and as some problems are resolved others will take their place.
Naturally, there have been many changes within my workplace over the years. Some changes have been quick and easy to learn while others have been more difficult and slower. I now know what adaptations I can make concerning how I work. Retirement is a conscious adaptation I am making to continue my work within a new context that is more physically and emotionally accommodating.
One thing that I’ve become more aware of is how a busy work life can mask emotions that lurk beneath the surface. Always present, but less noticeable because of distractions that result from an engaging work-life. This will prove challenging as I seek to re-examine old themes of success, failure, and opportunities for growth.
In the next essay, I will examine Phase 2- Reformation.
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References:
Salsberg, Edward, et al. “The Social Work Profession: Findings From Three Years of Surveys of New Social Workers.” The Council on Social Work Education and The National Association of Social Workers, https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=1_j2EXVNspY%3D&portalid=0, August 2020