Working with older adults.
The second half of life brings its own questions. Bereavement, retirement, changing health, supporting a partner or parent, the meaning of an afternoon that no longer fills itself. This page covers what therapy can look like in this part of life, how we work with it, and how to begin.
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What it can look like
Therapy in later life is not a single experience. For some people it is grief work after the death of a partner, a sibling, or a long friendship. For others it is a slow adjustment to retirement and the shape of an unstructured week. For others again it is a felt loneliness that surprises them: a sense that the people who knew the whole story are now fewer, and that the discrepancy between the relationships longed for and the ones that remain has widened. For others again it is the burden of being the family's carer and the wish to put down some of that weight without being seen as ungrateful.
It is also a pattern of making do, not just feeling lonely or grieving. The smaller circle of social contact treated as enough because it has to be. The cognitive slips quietly catalogued. The body's new rules absorbed without complaint. The sense that this stage of life is supposed to be quiet, even when the quiet has become unsupportable.
Where it tends to overlap with other things
People often arrive describing one thing and discover, in the work, that several are happening at once. Depression in later life is rarely separate from grief, loneliness, or chronic illness. Anxiety can travel with cognitive changes that may or may not be early dementia. Carer fatigue blurs with the carer's own grief at the slow loss of the person they are caring for. None of this is to relabel the experience. It is to make sure the work meets what is actually there.
What it costs to keep carrying it
Long-running grief, loneliness, or carer strain is rarely just an internal problem. Over time it shapes sleep, the body, motivation, relationships, and the sense of what is possible. People often describe a slow narrowing: fewer outings, fewer phone calls returned, fewer conversations that go below the surface. Recognising the loop is often the first part of changing it, and at this stage of life the loop is often the thing that gets named for the first time.
Why it is common, and why that matters
Around one in three older Australians report being lonely, and around one in six experience severe loneliness. Prolonged grief disorder is estimated to affect around one in ten bereaved older adults. Around three million Australians provide informal care, often at meaningful cost to their own health. That is not a reassurance about severity. Late-life mental health is often quietly serious. But it is a reminder that whatever shape this stage of life has taken, it is well-described, and there are recognised pathways for getting support.
How we work
Time to talk through what brought you in
Like every session, the first is 50 minutes, and it is mostly listening. We map what you are carrying, when it started or worsened, what you have already tried, and what you want from the work. No pressure to commit to a number of sessions.
Individually tailored, paced to you
We work in a way that is individually tailored, drawing on what fits the person and the presentation rather than running everyone through the same protocol. In later-life work the pace often matters more, not less: enough time for what has actually been lost, enough room for the body, enough patience with what cannot be changed.
In conversation with your GP and, where relevant, family
For most people seeing us in later life, a GP and a Mental Health Treatment Plan are part of the picture, as is, often, a partner or adult child involved as support. With consent, we write to your GP at the points that matter, and we can include family in sessions where that is what you want.
Who you would see
Matthew is interested in understanding how a person's whole system works before anything in it is asked to change.
Natalia works to make a first session feel less like an assessment and more like a conversation.
Practical info
Get started →Book a Meet and Greet
A free 15-minute call or in-person meeting, no obligation, to see if we are the right fit before committing to anything. It does not use a Medicare session.
Who this work is for
- Adults aged 60 and over navigating bereavement, retirement, loneliness, carer strain, or adjustment to chronic illness.
- People who want to work individually and at a pace that suits this stage of life.
- Those happy to involve a GP and, where it helps, family.
- People who want a working understanding of what has changed and what therapy can and cannot offer at this stage.
What this work is not
- Crisis support. If you are in crisis, please call 000 or Lifeline 13 11 14.
- A substitute for medical or geriatric care. Cognitive concerns, falls, and complex medication reviews sit with a GP or geriatrician.
- A dementia assessment service. We work alongside such services; we do not provide diagnostic neuropsychology.
- A guarantee of any specific outcome.
Common questions
All older adults answers →The evidence
The evidence
What later-life mental health looks like at the population level
Late-life loneliness, grief, and carer strain are common in Australia. Survey data from Ending Loneliness Together in 2023 found around 1 in 3 Australian adults reported being lonely, with around 1 in 6 experiencing severe loneliness. A systematic review of prolonged grief disorder in adults aged 65 and over estimated prevalence at around 1 in 10, although figures across individual studies varied widely depending on how it was measured (Thiemann et al., 2023).
Around 425,000 Australians were living with dementia in 2025, and the figure is projected to rise to more than 1.1 million by 2065. Around 3 million Australians, about 1 in 8 of the population, provided informal care in 2022, with the replacement cost of that care estimated at $77.9 billion per year. None of these figures is the same as cause. They are part of why later-life mental health is rarely treated in isolation.
Therapy as part of a wider system of care
Current Australian and international clinical guidelines describe psychological therapy as a recommended intervention for older adults experiencing depression, prolonged grief, and adjustment to chronic illness or carer strain, often delivered alongside GP-led medical care and, where appropriate, with family involvement.
Care in later life often involves more than one person
- Ending Loneliness Together. (2023). State of the Nation Report: Social Connection in Australia 2023. Ending Loneliness Together. https://endingloneliness.com.au/state-of-the-nation/
- Thiemann, P., Street, A. N., Heath, S. E., Quince, T., Kuhn, I., & Barclay, S. (2023). Prolonged grief disorder prevalence in adults 65 years and over: A systematic review. BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care, 13(e1), e30–e42. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2020-002845
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2025). Dementia in Australia 2025. AIHW. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/dementia/dementia-in-australia
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2024). Informal carers in Australia 2024. AIHW. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/informal-carers
Resources
See all →General information only. This page is general psychoeducation, not a clinical assessment, diagnosis, or treatment. Reading it does not establish a treating relationship. Outcomes from psychological therapy vary between people and cannot be guaranteed. If you would like personalised support, please book a Meet and Greet or speak with your GP. If you are in immediate danger, call 000 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.