Michelle Obama is smart to have therapy in her sixties

By Jean-Claude Chalmet, as told to Anna Maxted for The Times, 08th May 2025.

It’s an age of transition — and opportunity, says the psychotherapist and author Jean-Claude Chalmet

Michelle Obama has set a great example for seeing a therapist in later life to find new meaning

For many 60 is an age of reckoning. Women have gone through menopause, many couples are empty-nesting, or near to it, and God knows what the state of your relationship is. People realise, “I’ve got a good 20 or so years left, if I’m lucky — what am I going to do with it? How am I going to give it meaning?” At last you have the opportunity to make it about you. But for that you have to explore who you are, what you can be and what you need.

Therapy is about helping you with that. And in speaking publicly about seeing a therapist at 60, Michelle Obama has set a great example. It’s the age by which we’ve shed a lot of preconceptions about what we should be, what we can or can’t do, and the feeling is: “I don’t want to merely exist, let me live.” You don’t give a damn. There’s an urge to find what it is that makes you tick, what it is you’ve wanted to do your whole life but didn’t dare.

Personally I love this age. At 65 I want to be involved, I want to be busy, I want to travel, I want to enjoy. I’m really going for it. I have a little more financial stability and I can do what I want to do, go where I want to go, and — like Obama not attending the inauguration — I can not go where I don’t want to go. I feel a lot more capable of doing things that once I would have talked myself out of.

She said her kids were “launched”. The question for many at 60 is, now how am I going to launch? Once the kids are living independently, this is the time you can start parenting yourself. Until then, when do we have time to listen to ourselves? We’re so used to taking care of others. Suddenly it’s about “what do I need?” I wonder how many women ask themselves that question before 55.

This phase of life is challenging: children leave, parents die. Obama’s mother died and they were close. When a parent dies you face your own mortality because there’s nobody above you any more. These losses are inevitable. Perhaps we should be prepared. But somehow we still think it will never happen. My question to a client would be, how are you going to use that shock? Can you use its energy to drive you forward, or will it leave you lost? You have a chance to reinvent yourself. Not that your previous identity wasn’t valid, but now there are fewer constraints. What do you want to be?

Jean-Claude is a psychotherapist, author and the founder of The Place Retreats in Bali

Around this age we realise we really haven’t got that long any more. My clients are often reflecting on issues like, do I want to stay in this relationship? Do I want to work more, or less? Do I want to create more? If I am committed to being with my partner for another 25 years. What kind of a life do I want and you want, and do we want together?

While there has been gossip about the Obamas’ relationship I don’t think their marriage is on the rocks. What is totally normal in any long-term relationship is for the magic to fade. And they had a high-octane existence that is not there any more. For any couple where one or both partners had a high-status job but now it’s quieter, there’s less excitement to hide any cracks.

The task is how to re-energise your relationship with yourself, and your partner. As with Michelle Obama, many people in a marriage sacrifice quite a lot. She had to watch everything she said or did. Now she has to relearn how to be.

Changing habits and patterns is difficult and frightening. It’s very wise to examine it, talk about it, feel it and gain insight. A therapist can challenge you, help you understand what is at the core of any fear. And then you have a choice, whether to give into it or overcome it.

Often couples who live high-powered, busy lives don’t work at their relationship as much as they might. They don’t look at it, they don’t ask, “What do we need?” — they just power through. They contort themselves into an existence that they believe the other needs, or the job needs, only to find when that is over there’s nothing left. People often lose their identity.

They can feel resentment, even while acknowledging the experiences they’d never have had without their spouse, and it can be helpful to negotiate the complexity of your feelings with a therapist. Good partners support each other. They provide emotional safety — the contentment that comes from knowing you can be who you want to be. For couples around this age it’s important to think about how they want to go forward. What is your vision, mission and purpose? Not only must you re-energise the relationship you have to repurpose yourself.

Beyond 60 it’s not about decline, it’s all about growth. By experiencing new things, we grow, we learn, we evolve. Do you want to stagnate, which hastens decline, or do you want to thrive? Ask anyone, “Do you want to stagnate?” and they’ll say, “No.” To which the answer is: “Then you have to do something.” What are you going to allow yourself to do? Sixty can be the beginning of a new exciting chapter.Beyond 60 it’s not about decline, it’s all about growth

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