The transition to retirement is a critical biopsychosocial stage that often brings challenges such as shifting roles and reduced income, which may lead to psychological distress. In this study, we systematically synthesized quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in enhancing well-being (increase in positive functioning) among retired adults. A comprehensive search across PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane was completed in October 2025. This was supplemented by Google Scholar and reference list screening, identifying 5,945 database records and 123 additional sources. After screening and eligibility assessment, seven studies met the inclusion criteria. Across these studies, interventions produced statistically significant improvements—including reductions in stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms—alongside increases in psychological well-being, happiness, resilience, life satisfaction, and marital quality. Overall, the findings demonstrate the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in supporting healthy psychosocial adjustment during retirement.
Full-time career retirement is a major developmental transition that is often examined through race-neutral frameworks, leaving Black men’s experiences underexplored in counseling and aging scholarship. This perspective article centers the narrative of a retired Black man veteran who transitioned into full-time career retirement after decades of state employment. Using a narrative interview approach, this manuscript examines the factors that shaped his retirement decision and adjustment to later adulthood. The interview frames retirement as a process of self-preservation, continuity, and intentional living rather than identity loss or disengagement. Findings highlight the role of disciplined wellness practices and selective disengagement in promoting balance and stability. Implications emphasize culturally responsive, strengths-based approaches that honor Black men’s lived experiences and self-defined paths to well-being. By centering lived experience, this article contributes to more inclusive understandings of retirement and adult development.
Retirement is commonly framed as a normative and voluntary developmental milestone; however, access to a psychologically healthy retirement is unevenly shaped by social, economic, and structural conditions. This conceptual article applies a social determinants of mental health (SDMH) framework to retirement, conceptualizing it as a complex psychosocial transition involving identity change, shifts in purpose and meaning, relational adjustment, and emotional variability. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, the manuscript examines how socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, gendered work histories, caregiving responsibilities, health status, and access to benefits influence both the ability to retire and the experience of retirement itself. Particular attention is given to constrained, delayed, and involuntary retirement pathways, which are often associated with heightened distress, grief, burnout, and identity disruption in counseling settings. Implications for counseling practice are emphasized throughout, including culturally responsive assessment, strengths-based and contextualized case conceptualization, and advocacy-oriented interventions. By situating retirement within broader life-course and structural contexts, this conceptual article offers counselors an equity-informed framework for supporting clients navigating later-life transitions.
Broaching intersectional identities in retirement is a crucial counseling skill that fosters trust and connection with older adults as they navigate this major life transition. Using Person-Centered, Trauma-Informed (PCTI) and Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) as complements to broaching, these theories provide both relational and cultural attunement to facilitate healing and well-being in this specialized population. Through didactic information and case studies, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide counselors and counselor educators with insight into broaching intersectional identities in retirement and to advocate for further research on aging and identity. The implications for clinical practice include providing an integrated framework for intentionally broaching retirement-related identity transitions grounded in trauma-informed, relational, and culturally responsive practices.
Suicide risk in older adulthood represents complex interactions between developmental transitions; changing social contexts; and interactions between ecological context and individual perceptions of belongingness, burdensomeness, and hope. This paper presents an integrative,developmentally appropriate framework for conceptualizing and addressing suicide risk in older adulthood, which is grounded in the Indivisible Self model of wellness. Drawing on current empirical knowledge of wellness, suicidality, and older adulthood, this paper presents risk and protective factors associated with older adulthood through life transitions, changing social contexts, and other relevant factors. We present a novel integration of suicide intervention, wellness, and holistic care as a suitable model to address the unique and multifaceted needs of older adults. Counselors can use the proposed approach to promote older adult wellness and suicide prevention.
This interview centers the full retirement experience of Anthony Crawford. This perspective highlights the complex interplay between social determinants, intersectional identity, the psychology of working, and social class/social mobility, as key factors in his lived experiences. The relationship between structural factors and interpersonal factors continues to be a growth edge in counseling, as counselors frequently report lack of knowledge or comfort in their relationship with counseling. This interview seeks to fill the gap and demonstrate a concrete way to develop clinical insights. The full interview is transcribed and provided, along with practical and research implications for counselors working with populations planning for or in their retirement phase in adult life.
Counselors are trained to anticipate on-time retirement-linked risks but increasingly are serving women pursuing off-time midlife career reinvention within ageist, sexist, racist, and ableist systems of power. Grounded in the author’s personal narrative, this perspective article highlights the compounded burdens of gendered ageism, biopsychosocial aging, and non-prototypical professional acceleration for midlife women. Built upon Crenshaw’s (1989) framework, chronological intersectionality is introduced as a way for counselors to conceptualize the concurrent biopsychosocial and systemic pressures and marginalization that can occur when age-expected norms collide with career changes for midlife women. Implications for clinical practice are described.
This qualitative study used reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to explore how the Adultspan Journal Fellowship Program, a structured, cohort-based mentorship initiative, supports the development of doctoral students and early-career counselor educators. Grounded in Social Learning Theory, the program integrates hands-on journal management, guided peer review, collaborative writing, and monthly didactic sessions within multi-layered mentorship. Data from asynchronous email interviews and document analysis with seven fellows across two cohorts (2022-2024) yielded four themes: (1) Cultivating Belonging Through Structured Mentorship, highlighting affirming guidance that reduced isolation and built peer networks; (2) Building Confidence and Professional Identity, reflecting growth in scholarly voice, self-efficacy, and faculty readiness; (3) Developing Scholarly and Editorial Expertise, showing gains in peer review, editorial decision-making, and publication workflows that enhanced research and writing practices; and (4) Refining the Fellowship Experience, emphasizing fellows' calls for clearer onboarding, extended duration, and expanded professional development. Findings suggest that structured, cohort-based mentorship can address gaps in doctoral training by blending authentic editorial tasks with identity-affirming support, offering a replicable model for counselor education programs and editorial boards seeking to build inclusive pipelines of emerging scholars.
Prior research has demonstrated the myriad of benefits that gardening can offer individuals, ranging from physical, mental, emotional, and social benefits. Though the counseling literature has begun to address the nature-wellness connection via EcoWellness theory (Reese & Myers, 2012), little attention has been paid to the benefits of gardening as a psychosocial well-being activity for adult populations. In this manuscript, authors offer a conceptual framework built on EcoWellness theory, psychosocial development theory, life-span, life-space career theory, and selection, optimization, and compensation theory that contextualizes gardening as a beneficial activity for young adults, middle adults, and older adults. Authors present specific aims and ideas for each of these three lifespan stages and provide suggestions for counselors to integrate them into clinical practice.
From a personal perspective, this article documents one counselor educator’s experience that might inform the work of counselors who are providing counseling services for those experiencing challenges during retirement.
Following recent changes to Medicare mental health law, counselors will have expanded opportunities to work with older adults. Historically, there has been a dearth of counselor training dedicated to counseling older adults, necessitating greater attention to understanding and applying best practices for preparing counselors to serve older adult clients. Looking to professions that have a longer history of serving older adults, specifically gerontology, social work, and geropsychology, we describe approaches to training counselors to work with older adults that may prove helpful for the counseling profession.
The authors explore literature discussing increasing levels of anxiety and depression among young adults connected to struggles with meaning and purpose. The authors present the challenges of young adulthood as a developmental stage, highlighting the role that spiritual and religious exploration can occupy in counseling. Exploring the barriers counselors report to integrating spirituality into counseling, the authors propose counselors use the Ways Paradigm framework to support young adults with their spiritual wellness, giving examples of ways of understanding, ways of being, and ways of intervening for working with clients with diverse religious and spiritual beliefs. The authors conclude with a case study and share implications for counselor educators and clinical practitioners.
This study aims to introduce a measurement tool into the literature that can reveal the factors affecting the joy of life in older adulthood. Participants included 266 individuals aged 55 and over living in Izmir, Turkey. The process of developing the scale includes the following stages: problem identification, item pool creation, expert opinion, form shaping, pilot application, and finalizing the scale. The exploratory factor analysis revealed that the scale consists of 6 different dimensions, and the variance explained by these dimensions was found to be 65.184%. The acceptable values for the scale's fit indicators are as follows: chi(2)/df0.90, IFI > 0.90, TLI > 0.90, CFI > 0.90, RMSEA < 0.08, and SRMR < 0.08. These values indicate an appropriate fit between the model and the data set. It was determined that the scale of factors affecting the joy of life in older adulthood is valid and reliable. The scale consists of six dimensions and 23 items.
Descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States (DAEUS), who lived in the South prior to 1965 and experienced decades of legalized discrimination, were found to have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Arline Geronimus (1992) coined the term "weathering" to acknowledge the accumulation of racial trauma stored within the body over extended periods of time. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study, aligned by the tenets of Critical Race Theory, explores how continuous racial trauma impacted DAEUS citizens' well-being and trust in the COVID-19 vaccine. Three Group Experiential Themes emerged during this study, all connected with the experiences of nine DAEUS participants between 69-84 years of age: (a) The Impact of Dehumanizing Experiences, (b) The Impact of Long-Term Racialized Healthcare, and (c) COVID-19 as The Perfect Storm. Implications for counselors and counselor educators are provided to encourage trauma-informed practices on behalf of the DAEUS population.
