Alright, so with social and emotional development in late adulthood, as usual, we'll start with Erickson's stage. And really, you know, as we get into late adulthood, part of the important thing that we need to overcome is facing the reality of death, basically. Like being able to accept the fact that our life is finite and eventually it's going to end and we need to...
find some way to feel like content and satisfied with the life that we have lived. We'll also talk quite a bit about retirement. So, you know, in the U.S., 65 is typically the age that people can retire and like to get their full, you know, funding or whatever from their retirement accounts.
So that's typically the age that we associate with retirement. So we'll talk a little bit about that. So obviously as our lifespan increases, people are spending more and more time in retirement, which can be kind of a mixed bag of...
emotions, right? It can be very fulfilling if someone is finding ways to fill their time with hobbies and relationships and volunteering. For other people, it can be kind of a depressing time, where especially if they were really attached to their job and they've lost that, you know, really important sense of identity and they don't really have anything else to do, they might just feel kind of bored.
We'll also talk a little bit about the different housing options. This is something I should update because there's a lot of... variation from state to state.
And I know a lot more about like Iowa and Midwest systems than I do about stuff out here. But yeah, there's different housing options, you know, all ranging all the way from like very independent, continuing to live in your home, all the way to like nursing homes that have very little autonomy. So we'll talk a little bit about those different options and kind of what they look like.
So first, like I said, starting with Erickson's psychosocial stage, Erickson called this ego integrity versus despair. And again, the idea is if you fall inside of ego integrity, that's going to be someone who feels complete, feels satisfied with their life, feels like they have spent their time wisely and done what they could do. Usually people in ego integrity, they're also going to feel satisfied with their relationships.
They're going to feel like they've gotten closure on any kind of conflicts that they've had. You know, they feel like they have people around them that they're close to. Also, they tend to view life in kind of a larger context.
So they're able to see that, like, even if I'm going to die in my physical form, you know, there's some sort of legacy I'm leaving behind with children or with some volunteer work that I did that contributed to the next generation. Or they might have a spiritual view that lets them think, like, you know, even if my body is dying, my soul or my spirit is going to continue to live in some form. So ego integrity often involves that, like being able to view life.
as more than just your physical body. Those who fall on the side of despair typically have a lot of regret and bitterness. So they maybe feel like they were cheated out of opportunities, or there's lots of things they wish they would have done that they didn't.
They may have relationship issues that are unresolved. Maybe they're estranged from a family member that they wish they would have talked to, something like that. They also tend to feel a lot of contempt for others, especially younger generations.
They may feel jealous that other people are going to get to live and that they're going to be missing out on lots of things. So at the end of life, they may be very angry, very bitter. So, yeah, that's kind of the idea of ego integrity versus despair.
I don't have a slide on it. Maybe actually, I'm trying to remember if we talk about it in depth or not. I'm just going to talk a little bit about, do you guys ever hear about the use of like psychedelics to help with facing death? It's pretty interesting stuff.
I don't think I have any slides on it, so I'll just talk very briefly about it. It's kind of a movement of using, I've mostly seen people using like psilocybin, which comes from mushrooms, where they use that in a therapeutic context to help people who have, it's mostly people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. So it's not always people in this age range. It might be someone who has like a terminal cancer or something and they're in their 30s or whatever.
Or it could be someone who's older and maybe, you know, coming to the end of life. But there's evidence that taking psilocybin basically can help people sort of cope with death and sort of face it. Part of it comes from this idea called ego disillusion. where basically like if you're having a psychedelic trip it's a very common experience to have this really like empowering feeling that you're sort of connected to everything and like you're not just your own body but that you're part of a bigger system or whatever so it kind of leads to that second point of like viewing life in a larger context so there's evidence that people especially if there's someone who's like suffering from depression because they're facing a terminal illness then psilocybin and other psychedelics can actually help. treat that depression and kind of make it easier to face death.
So that's one way to do it. So I've seen microdosing and then I've also seen people do like full-on trips or whatever, but usually under the guidance of like, I keep saying I've seen, I don't mean I've actually seen it myself, but there's probably been people who have done that too. The main one I know about is psilocybin from like mushrooms.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's like...
therapists like licensed therapists and psychologists who will lead like a yeah like a guided trip session um but yeah that sort of to serve this purpose basically they what oh really right yeah yeah yeah the first place i heard of it there's a book i read called how to change your mind by Michael Pollan or something. And he taught, I mean, the whole thing is about like psychedelics and different ways to use them in a therapeutic setting. And there's like a whole chapter or something about using it in this context. So probably, yeah, it's probably based off of that book. Yeah.
All right. So like I said, retirement is kind of the main event that's happening for people in this age. Assuming that they are able to, right?
There are lots of people who still continue to work, basically, until they die because they have to for financial reasons. They haven't been able to save up for retirement or anything. But, yeah, so there are some researchers that refer to this period as, like, the third age. So the idea is that I think the first age is from, like, birth to adolescence or something, and then second age is adolescence to here, and then third age is retirement. So let's see, what do I want to say about retirement?
So like I said, for some people, this can be a period of like fulfillment and self-realization. It's a time where, you know, all of a sudden you have 50 more hours a week because you're not working. And so you can fill that time with all kinds of activities and hobbies and relationships and volunteering, etc. Of course, a lot of that is going to be dependent on the state of your health. So if someone is in fairly good health to where they're still mobile, they're still, you know, like cognitively able.
to engage with things, then it's going to be a lot easier to have that fulfillment compared to someone who's maybe not mobile or, you know, suffering from one of the neurodegenerative disorders we talked about. Transitioning to retirement can be very difficult, and there's a lot of changes happening currently, sort of with like current generations, the way that this is done. So it used to be fairly common that retirement was like an event. There was like a day that you retired and you were done with your job and after that day you never went back to work again and so it was like you were working and then you were retired. Now it's much more common for that to be a more gradual process where someone might, you know, they get to 65 and they decide, okay, I'm going to work half time.
I'm going to work 20 hours a week for a year and see how that goes, see how I like that, and then after that maybe I'll, you know, quit but I'll still be consulting to where I can come in on call or whatever. And so it's this much more gradual process where there's a transition to retirement instead of just like a day that it happens. Part of that, I think, is like financially driven.
So, again, a lot of people just can't afford to just quit their job at 65 and not have any income coming in. So they're sort of forced to keep working. Others, it might be that they're again, their identity is so tied up in their work that the thought of leaving just is not something that they're looking forward to.
So they try to find some way. to stay and work for as long as they can. A lot of elderly people spend a lot of their extra time basically volunteering.
So volunteering at like homeless shelters or you know things like that. I had a number and I just lost it of like the number of hours that people spend volunteering. The wrong notes that's why I have too much.
Too much stuff doing three PowerPoints in one day, so it's hard to keep track of all my things. That's okay. Maybe I'll find it later. I had a number.
It was like some billions of hours that elderly people spend volunteering every year whenever they're in a state of retirement. I should also probably at some point, I've been thinking about updating this lecture to add just like some more information about what you should be doing for retirement because it's probably useful for you to know. It's a good idea in general to start saving for retirement as early as possible.
So like the moment that you start a job that offers anything like a 401k or any of that stuff, start looking into it, start putting money into it. The earlier you start, the more money you're going to have by the end, obviously. Yes, congratulations.
Yeah, that's always like the most adult feeling thing in the world to start a retirement account. Yeah. I have a high yield savings account.
I've got an interest on my money. Not 21%. Yeah, so all of you should be looking into it.
None of those words meant anything to you. You should be looking into it and figuring out as soon as possible. Yeah, especially because again, like who knows, who knows what the state of social security and all that will be by the time that we start retiring.
Yeah. All right. So last thing I want to talk about in this time period are possible housing arrangements. So as people get older, especially if they're starting to lose mobility, then some decisions often have to be made about where they're going to continue to live.
I have these listed kind of ranging from most autonomy and freedom to least autonomy and freedom. So pretty much everyone, if you poll people over the age of 65 and you ask them, where would you like to be living? Basically, everybody says that they would want to stay in their own home. So in-home care is one option.
If someone's starting to lose some mobility, you know, they can do a lot of things for themselves, but they have difficulty maybe keeping the house clean or doing laundry or getting groceries for themselves. Then they might be able to get some in-home care That in-home care could come from a family member or it could come from like a paid person who's doing it for them In-home care tends to be extremely expensive though Again, I don't know state. I know in like Iowa in the Midwest There's not a lot of good programs or like government assistance to get out in home care Um, so it can be really expensive like prohibitively expensive for most people to do. Okay That's awesome.
That's amazing. Yeah, I need to look a lot more into like Washington's policies and stuff because I'm sure it's very different than where I grew up. So in-home care is one option.
Kind of the next step from that would be residential communities that are built for elderly people. So there's lots of communities where it's like, you know, like little houses or condos or whatever that look like a pretty normal neighborhood, but everyone in that neighborhood is over the age of 65. They may get some sort of like, you know, reduced rent for that. And then oftentimes there's also like accommodations built into those residential communities. So there might be someone kind of like an in-home care, but that's for everybody where, you know, there's one person that goes door to door and helps everybody get their groceries or maybe like facilitates activities or things like that.
Assisted living facilities, kind of similar. I would say they're more think of like a hotel. or maybe even like an apartment where, you know, again, there's a bunch of elderly people living in the same building, but they have their own room or maybe even their own like whole suite, and they're getting again loss of assistance. And then nursing homes are the least autonomous. Nursing homes typically you have maybe like one little tiny room to yourself with a bed and, you know, maybe a bathroom to yourself potentially.
But then all the other spaces are shared. You're sharing a kitchen, you're sharing, you know, potentially a bathroom, other spaces with the other elderly people you live with. And usually then the people who run the facility are going to make pretty much all your decisions for you.
They're going to schedule when you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They probably are deciding what those meals are going to be. They're going to schedule when you have free time to, you know, watch movies or do whatever. So there's a lot less autonomy in nursing homes compared to some of the other facility options.
So it's very restrictive, although it tends to be, at least again in the Midwest, it's to be the most cost-effective option. There's also all kinds of issues with nursing homes that we could probably spend an entire class period talking about. Yeah. I think part of that depends on, I would say if someone is like not cognitively able to make decisions for themselves, then potentially then. So if someone has like Alzheimer's or dementia and it's documented.
No. Have you? Again, that might be something that varies by state too.
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Yeah. My dad's got like an inheritance but not even like you know four years of you gone.
Yeah yeah. So like he wanted to stay at the apartment and uh I set that up. But I had to get him to quit drinking.
Yeah, also quit smoking. Yeah, he's gonna lose his leg if he doesn't quit smoking But yeah, it's a With the dementia, they still won't They still won't just like interest interesting yeah if he if they give you like a really simple test it's like an apple pen like doorknob like memory test and if you're able to like get just a little bit of that right then they'll get that yeah yeah and so i've been trying to sell this car that like my uncle wants to get rid of because he can't drive yeah he won't let me sell it he won't leave the apartment so right that's interesting yeah did you have a problem Those with Alzheimer's dementia won't have a right to leave the building, but they will still have a right to refuse medications or refuse care until the point where we do have to step in and say, hey, you really need us to take care of you. Can we please do that?
Right. Those who are mentally disabled, though, they can still have a right to leave the building and come back. Not as controlling on their schedule, but we do keep an eye on them. and we need to sign out. Okay.
So there's some regulations, but elderly people do have some rights still unless the power of attorney takes them away. Yeah. Interesting. Still doesn't.
Yeah, I'm sure like case by case, like actually enforcing all of the regulations and stuff. I'm just being in a worst case scenario. Yeah. Like literally.
Right. Yeah, he's like right on the edge. Yeah.
Yeah. I am going to be in a lot of trouble.