The Elderly Interview: Retirement, Health, and Gerotranscendence

THE ELDERLY INTERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
 Overview
Old age is related to many social changes, dicules, physical and cognive changes, new
concerns, a shi in a person’s view on life and relaonships, and so on. Firstly, old people at some
point have to rere: they have to reorganize their life and me, they have to learn to socialize
dierently and may either feel pressure to adapt or feel relief from the sudden gained freedom and
me, or maybe both. Addionally, old people may start to feel more oen, or more intensely, their
bodily and cognive changes and losses, as well as face more and more health issues. (Feldman,
2017).
As a maer of fact, dealing with dystonic elements of life and learning to live and enjoy the
more painful parts of aging, while taking a step back as an individual and shiing your point of view
to a more global one, has been understood as part of a natural human development called
gerotranscendence (Tornstam, 2011; Kim, 2023). This ability to step back and see yourself as part of
a larger enty could also help a person deal with the fear of dying, more and more prominent in the
elderly populaon (Feldman, 2017).
Given the changes elderly people face, and accounng for the distress these may cause, our
focus is on addressing and understanding three major issues, such as: how does rerement aect
social life and life sasfacon; how do physical and cognive declines aect social life and life
sasfacon; and how does the achievement of gerotranscendence, or the lack of it, interact with life
sasfacon, in one select elderly individual we will interview.
 Theorecal background
The elderly populaon, as stated beforehand, is subject to dicules. Rering for instance,
comes with its own load of potenal issues. Newly rered individuals may feel like they are loosing
their role in society, feel lonely (e.g., if they relied on professional context for socializing), boredom,
dynamic changes in romanc relaonships, etc. (Feldman, 2017). Those are factors which can, if
unaddressed, lead to a depressive state (Kim, 2023) and marital dissasfacon (Feldman, 2017).
However, new situaons create new opportunies, and rering can also be a relief for the individual
who is exhausted from their previous posion, has suciently good health, has plans they want to
carry out, and/or a good social circle apart from the workplace (Feldman, 2017).
Secondly, considering the physical and cognive declines that ulmately happen with aging,
it is fair to consider they have an impact on many aspects of life and its quality. In fact, aging
populaon is known to pracce SOC (Selecve Opmizaon Compensaon) to cope with the impact
their health and aging related declines have on their life. This means they will do less quantavely,
but may do more qualitavely, when it comes to certain acvies they did previously but are limited
in now (Kim, 2023). Their dicules and limitaons generally comprise of sensory loss (sight, sound,
taste, and smell are aected), high incidences of diseases (e.g., cancer, heart disease, stroke,

infecous diseases, arthris, etc.), less eecve recovery in diseases and injuries, mental disorders
(e.g., Alzheimer’s), chronic fague, slower reacon me, etc. (Feldman, 2017).
Thirdly, gerotranscendence, or the added 9th stage to Erikson’s psychosocial theory, which
relates to some extent to one’s atude and outlook on life (Tornstam, 2011), could have a signicant
eect over one’s sasfacon and dealing with the prominent fear of their or their loved one’s
passing. Gerotranscendence can also be partly interpreted as the acceptance of the negave aspects
of aging as part of the natural cycle (Kim, 2023). Acceptance being the last and opmal stage of grief
(Kübler-Ross, 1982), gerotranscendence as a stage is the overcoming of age as if it were a loss, and,
taking into account the gravity of some of the health complicaons the elderly populaon faces, the
ability to live past one’s debilitang condion may be the greater predictor for life sasfacon and
peace among the elderly.
 Aim
Our aim, during the elderly interview, is to address and witness all previously stated issues:
the eect of rerement, the eect of bodily and cognive health issues and the elderly’s posion
towards gerotranscendence and its eect on life sasfacon.
Consequently, we want to evaluate the person’s social circle and whether they feel lonely or
not. We want to gauge if the person remains acve in rerement and sll pursues hobbies or sports.
We also need to assess the bodily and cognive health issues the person goes through, if they
pracce “SOC” to some extent, and if they feel dependable or rather dependent on others. Finaly, we
would like to understand whether they are in a path to achieve gerotranscendence, their relaonship
with spirituality, if they have raonalized the concept of death and how they deal with their age-
related complicaons.
METHOD
 Parcipant
The parcipant is a 78-years-old cisgender woman from France, selected from acquaintances.
To preserve her anonymity, we will refer to her using the alias: “Hélène” (her choice). She has been
rered for 28 years from her lifelong primary school teacher posion. She rered early because of
health concerns and private maers she does not want specied in the review. She lives with her
also rered husband and they share their pensions and expenses.
While sll working, she has been involved in NPOs such as her teachers’ union and “Secours
Populaire” (assistance for the poor). Since rerement she and her husband have been involved in the
management of “Alcooliques Anonymes” in their home area, but le the organizaon a few years
ago.
She has 3 children and 7 granddaughters. Her mother whom she lived with for a few years
prior, recently passed away at 94-years-old.

She has condions and health issues she deals with such as osteoporosis and generalized
arthris, which lead to a severely broken spine (now in healing), some digesve issues, a taste and
smell loss from a prior COVID infecon, as well as insomnia.
 Procedure
The interviewee was contacted among acquaintances, through text messages. She agreed to
free an aernoon to meet up in person and go through our quesonnaire together.
The quesonnaire was prepared accordingly with a previous literature review of elderly
issues. It was wrien as semi-structured with many more open parts. We used a more open
interview style to ensure the parcipant expressed anything we overlooked and was not limited by
the quesonnaire; it was to be used as a basis to work from.
Before the interview, she verbally agreed to be recorded, on the grounds that any records
would be kept private for the me they were used and then erased.
Due to her expressive nature and her seemingly high interest in the maer, Hélène answered
all quesons very openly and profusely, so that we ended up not scking with the prepared stricter
format. She could answer many quesons from simply expressing herself which worked perfectly
ne, and she ended up covering every issue we had prepared without needing to be asked most
quesons. The interview ended up lasng around an hour and a half, excluding coee break me.
RESULTS
 Rerement
Hélène has always been a very acve and energec woman. Correspondingly, she menons
how since rering she has engaged in many acvies, including dierent arts and cras clubs and a
sport group to hike. She also travelled with her van thanks to the free me she now had. She
species: “me ies, […] I am never bored”. However, she also explains how since breaking her spine
she has had to leave her sport group as it causes her too much pain to do sports now, and how she
doesn’t travel much anymore because of her health.
As a reree, she also joined a new NPO: “Alcooliques Anonymes”, in support of those
suering from alcoholism and their families. This took up a lot of her me and helped her keep a
fullling social life as well as a sense of purpose despite rering. Similarly to hiking or travelling, she
decided to surrender her posion there a few years ago, because of her health concerns and as she
was more and more red.
She explains how she has a great relaonship with her neighbors she calls very friendly and
many long-me friendships she entertains regularly, from her past experiences in NPOs, her past
teaching profession or her many clubs. She says: “I am never lonely”.

More importantly, she expresses how rering was more of a relief for her than anything, as
she was overly aected by personal maers. For her, having me helped her overcome those prior
issues and heal at her own pace. She explains: “I rered because I was exhausted, […] I was able to let
go, […] I healed”.
 Health issues, cognive declines, and SOC
As menoned previously, Hélène currently suers from many health problems. She does not
menon much cognive decline however, she has very lile memory loss, no aenon decits, she
thinks clearly and generally does not feel much changes from when she was younger.
In that case, all the SOC she does stems from her bodily health issues. She says: “I am
handicaped […] I feel old, […] I feel diminished”. For that reason, she quit sports, she stopped
travelling as much and she quit her NPO. This allowed her to focus on her cras, her relaonships,
and her family, without draining all of her energy or hurng herself otherwise.
She species that she does not feel dependent of others due to her health, that in fact, it is
her that her husband relies on, since he is weakened by his own health issues and cannot help
around the house, among other things. She nonetheless menons how she fears that one day she
might not be dependable as much, or at all, as she progressively sees her health declining and is
more and more wary about having an accident or geng ill.
 Gerotranscendence
As a maer of fact, Hélène menons death a lot in her discourse. She states: “since my
mother died, the separaon between us [her and her husband] and death has been stripped away: we
are next in line, because we’re now the elder”.
When asked about her view of death, she explain that she is atheist and only sees it as the
end of life. She does not engage in any religion or any kind of spirituality, to her it is simply
nothingness. In that sense she has raonalized her view of death. However, she remains afraid of it
and saddened since she loves life and the people around her. She describes how she may not see
grow her soon to be born grand grandson, and how this breaks her heart. In fact, she would have
wished to see all of her children or granddaughters ll the end of their life but realizes now that she
won’t. She shortly menons her husband and how she is now very afraid of losing him.
Dierently, when it comes to her health issues, she is easily accepng and takes them as a
natural part of life. Even if they do impact her mentally and physically as they are quite serious, she
does not deny her old nature and is grateful as she considers that she is well-o for her age: “I am
grateful to be autonomous, despite my age”.
DISCUSSION
From the interviewer standpoint, Hélène does not appear to be a stereotypical 78-year-old.
She is acve and really involved socially and in acvies. She manages her life completely and even

that of her husband. She was involved in organizaons unl very recently and sll gives a lot of
energy to her community through her many close relaonships and in her neighborhood. As opposed
to what the elderly’s social disengagement theory predicts (Feldman, 2017), her aging and rering
did not aect her social circle size and her sasfacon in human relaonships at all, in fact she could
involve herself even more thanks to the free me she gained. To her, rerement was about healing
and fullling her passions, geng me for the people she loves and taking a step back on life to
breathe: only posives.
Her case however is specic, since she rered early she was sll in a very acve mindset
when it happened and was able to create a smulang environment and life for herself. In that way,
she conrms the validity of the Social Reconstrucon Syndrome (Kim, 2023). She did not implement
new strategies during her aging process or need resources from organizaons. But she illustrates
how, when you do not have overwhelming economic or housing dicules, the ability to keep a
smulang environment and acvies while adapng to your new dicules is a great predictor of
successful aging and maintained competency. This could also explain how she keeps her cognive
ability good for her age, since she has a smulang life.
Yet, from her tesmony we can also infer emoonal and psychological dicules, especially
when it comes to grief. We can see that she is currently going though preparatory depression
(Kübler-Ross, 1982) and grieving all of her future losses, as she thinks about how she won’t see her
descendants’ lives unfold. She also menons her mother’s recent passing a lot and subtly the thought
of her husband’s passing, generally expressing how she is subject to reoccurring thoughts of death. It
does not seem that she nds comfort in any sort of spirituality, as gerotranscendence theory
suggests some elders do (Tornstam, 2011). Nonetheless, the fact that she prepares herself for those
unescapable events shows competency and adaptability. Even if she feels sadness, it is natural given
the nature of the situaon and could be considered more funconal than entering a state of denial
(Kübler-Ross, 1982).
Despite this, she sll expresses nding joy and contentment in her life, and more importantly
some peace. We can aribute this to her pracce of SOC, as well as her social aptudes, and to some
extent her accepng atude when it comes to aging, but it seems gerotranscendence in her case
does not play a big role for her life sasfacon, as opposed to our hypothesis.
Interesngly, her general atude throughout the interview speaks to how much the elderly
need to express themselves about those issues. She had many things to say without needing to be
asked, and acvely and profoundly answered quesons. It was clear how being able to speak about
her hardships as an older person was not a given. The opportunity to speak about death as well
seemed rare and welcomed. As she menoned at some point, when with her friends, speaking about
death was only done in a jokingly manner, never serious. From our point of view, this speaks to how
we should not treat the topic of death as taboo, and address it with our elders rather than avoid it
for it is too sad. As per Kübler-Ross’ theory (1982), the path towards peace in grief includes full
awareness, which cannot be achieved without expressing oneself, if only to sort out your feelings or
let them be known.