Tom Murphy
RedwoodAge.com
For those close to retirement, economic declines can wipe out a nest egg that there is no time to rebuild, and the psychological impacts can be devastating.
Much has been written about how these folks need to hold on tight and ride out the storm. But that's easier said than done. A time of crisis can bring on serious psychological problems that affect marriages, ruin careers and, possibly, lead to suicide.
RedwoodAge.com discussed these issues with Dr. Jerrold Shapiro, a licensed psychologist and professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University.
RA: What are some of the signs that people may be facing undue stress in relation to their financial status?
Shapiro: Well, it's coming out in three ways: anxiety, depression and relational distress.
RA: Let's take those one by one. What are some of the signs of anxiety?
Shapiro: Feeling unsafe, feeling uncomfortable, being scared. The difference between fear and anxiety is that anxiety is usually more global. It's more of a sense of ill-at-ease, which is different, for example, from a more specific fear of flying. It kind of grows on itself. Anxiety shows up a lot in sleeplessness, in tentativeness - things I've done my whole life, I'm now less sure about. And particularly when it comes to things like savings and investment and spending - things I've been very comfortable with for year, decades. Do I really need this? Should I really spend this? That sort of thing.
RA: Let's talk about depression. In this context, how would depression manifest itself?
Shapiro: Depression manifests itself in a feeling of helplessness, a feeling of low energy, a sense of despair, a sense that 'There's nothing I can do to change anything.' It's extremely debilitating. In fact, depression is the second most debilitating illness we know of, second to stroke. There are two kinds of depression. There's endogenous, which is long-term and usually chemically based. And there's reactive depression. What we're talking about here, and seeing here, is a lot of reactive depression. It's reacting to events. And the biggest event is the discrepancy between what is expected and what is occurring.
RA: The third point is relational stress. Boomers have always had odd relationships, but how is this likely to manifest itself in a long-term relationship?
Shapiro: I'll give you an example. I was speaking with two guys yesterday. One is about 62, the other about 58. And both of them were saying they cannot sit down to a meal without their wives telling them all the things they heard on the radio and how they should buy gold and hide it in the backyard. Now, that's obviously an exaggeration that the men are giving me. But everyone now is listing to 'experts' and every expert has a different response. And people are pushing their partners to know things they don't know. You know, in every couple, one person is usually in charge of the finances. And for most of the boomers they worked this out a long time ago and are pretty happy with it. Whatever their level of income, whatever their budgets, one person is kind of 'the person.' Well now, inexplicably, that one person is being blamed as if they did something wrong. Or they're feeling that what they did over the years is forgotten and now they're being pressured to know what to do in this environment.
RA: So they may start feeling either guilty about this or victimized?
Shapiro: Both. And in addition, they can't get away from it. I can't tell you the number of people who are telling me 'I can't stop my husband or wife or partner from reading The Wall Street Journal out loud to me every morning, which is kind of the end of a decent breakfast.
RA: One of the things I like to remind people is that it's only money and there's a lot more to life.
Shapiro: When you say to someone, 'it's only money,' of course you're right. But there's a big second part to that sentence: 'unless you don't have any.' If someone is seeing their total estate dropping from $10 million to $7 million, it's not going to change their lifestyle a whole lot. But someone I know just retired at 62 - took early Social Security, left their position. They have now one income plus a percentage of Social Security and savings, which would have worked. But now their estate is low enough that they're not getting the return [they need].
Now, let's get back to the first part of the equation. Money doesn't create happiness. It only creates misery. Or we could say the lack of it creates misery. Helping people get away from the fears and the anxiety and depression, and to get back into their values and what's really important to them, is really the most effective way to help people get through this.
Americans are amazing for forgetting history. The pundits who are saying 'this is 1929 all over again' aren't talking to the boomers. They're talking to the boomers' memories of what their parents told them about the Great Depression. It was pretty horrible. A lot of us grew up - I did, for example - with a cash-and-carry mentality because of what my parents described about the Depression. I never lived in it. But we're probably looking at a setback closer to what we had in the '70s, or the one we had in the meltdown after the dot-com boom. We're probably looking at that more than we are the one in the '30s. Who knows? Clearly the people in power don't.
RA: Now, part of normal life is being a little worried about things. But when does it get to the point where people should seek some professional counseling?
Shapiro: When it starts disrupting function, when they're not functioning as well. Boomers are fabulous for, let's say, five years ago, everyone talking about the value of their real estate and how much it had gone up. And, the same way, they can talk about how much money they lost in this drop or that drop. That's like kvetching. For a lot of people, it's kind of fun, like a contest in which the person with the worst story wins. However, when it starts interfering with your functioning, it gets very serious. For example, when you get laid off and you have no healthcare, and you have health problems, and you can't get private insurance easily, if at all. It's a problem until you get to Medicare.
RA: As a psychologist, you can't give them money advice, but you can help them with treatment. But before they get into a clinical setting, what can people do in their own lives if they start feeling these feelings of anxiety, or they notice changes in their relationships?
Shapiro: Let's start with the relational stuff first. They need to talk to each other about what their limits are. For example, at the breakfast table, if your partner is reading The Wall Street Journal and doing the 'woe is me' thing, that's not how you function well, or it's going to ruin your day. You need to say: 'Look, I need to talk about that at another, specified time. I can't talk about it now' or 'I hate it. I just don't want you to read the paper to me with all the bad news.' People can do that. They can also talk about what's good in their lives, to refocus.
RA: What about physical activity - getting out and exercising more, and that sort of thing?
Shapiro: There's nothing better. There's nothing better than movement. It changes the way your body feels. And it changes the way your head is.
RA: One of the things we stress at RedwoodAge.com is the balance of the intellectual, the physical and the spiritual sides of life.
Shapiro: You have all the psychology there! I was going to get to that, but since we're here, the key to life - in everything I've studied - is not in retiring, but in rebalancing. It's true at every stage of development, and my specialty is the boomers. As they come into this post-mid-life period and move through it, the biggest issue is not doing what they did that worked in their 30s, but doing what is going to work in their 60s. And it usually involves a different balance.
RA: That rebalancing can take place on a temporary basis, too, can't it? For example, if the market's down and you're worried about money, you can do things then that address that situation, even if you don't intend to do them the rest of your life, right? Like start a garden and grow organic vegetables, or go back to cycling if you're worried about gas prices?
Shapiro: Yes. And very often people find they like it. They like doing it, and even if they don't have to, it becomes a pleasure. And it's also quite healthy in a lot of ways. You talk about the spiritual; meditative time becomes really important. Now there's a compounding factor here that becomes really interesting, and that is that somewhere in the 40s, someone comes into their life and changes all the rules. What that means is, what has worked for you historically, stops working quite as well, and you need to find alternative ways of doing things.
RA: That's probably true for everyone I know.
Shapiro: It's one of those things that's true. I don't know who's quote it was originally - Steven Covey and other people use it - that talks about people at this age continually pursuing up to the last rung of the ladder, only to discover it's against the wrong wall.
RA: Any final advice?
Shapiro: You asked a question I didn't fully answer: when should people go for help? It's amazing how helpful it is to have someone else help you put your life in perspective, and the best kind of help does that. What psychotherapists do really well is to help the person understand, yes, this is a potential crisis, and, yes, it's bad, and yes, it's happening, but it isn't your whole life. It's a piece of your whole life, and we have to find ways of keeping it where it belongs.
The last thing is, and this may be a little harsh, your average therapist knows nothing about money, and you need to find one that does. I teach a course here called 'The Last Taboo' which is about therapists and money. Not only therapists have a hard time with it, but clients. Clients will tell you things they do with marmalade and panty hose before they'll tell you their income. And you don't want to know the things they do with those! Nor do I! Money is the taboo subject. And when there's a meltdown, it's something people have never talked about because there are so many secrets around it, and so it's harder to address. And it's also hard for therapists; you really need therapists who are comfortable with it.
