The Shift at 60

The change in later life can be just as dramatic and rewarding as the change from adolescence to adulthood. AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES GARFIELD, PHD

- STEPHEN KIESLING

Charles Garfield, 75, has found that “some of the most profound growth of our lives can happen in the years after age 60 or so.” He’s a fellow of the American Psychological Association and currently a research scholar at the Starr King School of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He spoke about growing older with joy, fulfillment, resilience, and no regrets.

You began exploring some of the toughest issues of aging a long time ago.

I was all of 29 years old. I had just graduated from UC Berkeley with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and I wanted to use those skills helping people who were really up against it. That’s why I went into psychology in the first place: to be of service to people who are really hurting.

So, I got a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cancer Research Institute at UC San Francisco Medical Center. My job was to take care of the spiritual, psychological, and emotional needs of 40 seriously ill cancer patients. I quickly realized that I had two choices: I could either quit because taking care of that many people was impossible, or I could figure out something new.

Then one day in the shower I had an idea: volunteers! I would train them in some of the skills I had learned in that wonderful Ph.D. program at Berkeley and then match them with patients. Well, the idea worked, and it was the beginning of what became what is now the Shanti Project. Of course, there were volunteer programs before Shanti, but none that trained people as extensively as we trained our volunteers. We inspired similar programs around the country.

Then you switched to perhaps the toughest test of all, the AIDS epidemic.