21st Century Aging

Living longer and better.

by Tamara McClintock Greenberg, Psy.D., M.S.

Middle Age in Uncharted Territory

We are facing a time in which the numbers of people we need to worry about are increasing. The average life span has increased exponentially in our lifetime. Read More

Do You Worry Too Much?

Everybody worries. Some of us worry too much. Although there is a lot of advice about how to combat worry, I recently came across a book that presents a novel approach to the management of anxiety. Read More

How Narcissism is Normal as we Age

It hurts to grow older—emotionally and sometimes physically. Managing self-esteem as we age is more about accepting limitations than pretending they do not exist. Read More

The Challenges of Being a Medically Ill Parent

It is rare that a film can capture, in such a concrete way, dynamics between parents and children that often go unspoken Read More

Keeping a Positive Outlook When Dealing With Chronic Illness

When friends and family are overly focused on being positive, it can result in patients feeling pressured to articulate how much they are suffering! Read More

Getting Support When You Have Diabetes

People with diabetes should not go at it alone. Having sympathetic champions are crucial to staying healthy—but it can be hard to know how to ask for help. Here are 8 tips to help you ask for what you need. Read More

When the Child Becomes the Parent

Taking care of an aging parent can throw us into multiple versions of ourselves. We can feel like an infant, child, and parent all at the same time. Read More

Grieving and the Holidays

We are taught that the holidays are supposed to be a time of excitement and joy; we see this depicted on television and in countless advertisements. Unfortunately, many of us do not experience the holidays as being surrounded by loving family, in front of a fireplace, or near a glowing Christmas tree. Read More

Differences Between Men and Women

Our current state of external inequality makes it harder to talk about internal and biological differences between the sexes. Read More

The New Rules of Modern Medicine

Relational detachment is the "new normal" when we spend time with our doctors. We need to adapt in order to get what we need. Read More

Conundrums: Approaches to Psychoanalysis

Conundrums: A Critique of Contemporary Psychoanalysis offers a thoughtful discussion of the benefits and limitations of contemporary psychoanalysis, as well as how politics in the field may keep us from thinking about how we can better communicate to the public (and each other) about what psychoanalytic therapies can offer. Read More

When Someone You Love Has A Chronic Illness

The topic of illness makes most of us feel anxious and helpless. Because of the fear and anxiety associated with the topic of illness, many people avoid conversations about the all-too-present reality of how physically vulnerable we are. Read More

How Dangerous Is "A Dangerous Method"?

Unlike relatively recent portrayals of longed-for sex with analysts, "A Dangerous Method" reminds us that boundary violations are, in fact, dangerous. Read More

Seniors on Television: A Milestone or Glass Ceiling?

It would be nice if we could see more elderly women represented in news media. Read More

How Patients Lose When Psychologists Are Not Involved in Medical Care

Health care costs are exploding and one silent factor in containing costs is rarely mentioned: the underutilization of psychological services. Read More

How We Misinterpret Grief

Ideas about what is normal about grieving should not be imposed; as outsiders we never really know the true story of a close relationship. Read More

Doctors Behaving Badly

Clinicians and bloggers might share some similar problems. We want attention and some of us will do anything to get it, including irresponsible and inappropriate blog posts. Read More

In Search of Iodide?

The intensity of fears about radiation poisoning on the West Coast and ways that people are acting on these fears reflect a kind of mass hysteria. Read More

Beyond the AIDS Epidemic

Though many therapists and people in the general public consider the AIDS crisis to be over, the physical and psychological health of many people in the LGBT population is an important and often neglected topic. Read More

Empiricism and Psychoanalytic Therapy

The news about empirical research supporting psychodynamic therapy can be met like the only water available in the midst of a severe drought. Indeed, psychodynamic psychotherapy has recently been viewed as vindicated. Read More

The Human Costs of Modern Medicine

Why are end of life issues so hard to talk about? Physicians avoid what desperately needs to be discussed when working with patients with terminal diagnoses. But psychologists can also fail to discuss what makes all of us so terrified--the idea of death. Read More

Lives in Therapy

Daphne Merkin's penetrating, moving, and poignant article in today's New York Times Magazine, which describes the hopes and disappointments of nearly forty years in various forms of analytic treatment, is likely familiar to many. Read More

Reality Check: Sherrod and the Internet

The impulse to believe brief bits of information is a form of cognitive economizing--we try to take things in quickly, but don't stop to seek all of the information. Read More

A New Mid-Life Crisis

Adjustment problems in midlife are no laughing matter. Middle-aged adults have the highest suicide rates in the country for the second year in a row. Read More

Not Your Parent's Psychotherapy: Psychodynamic Therapy Today

Over the years, many students have told me they can credit one person for their interest in psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalysis. That person is Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D. Read More

How “Doing it All” Is Not Enough

In trying to do it all, especially during this tough economic time, we women may be neglecting ourselves. Though often our instinct is to think about others, we need to start putting ourselves first. Read More

In Shock

The experiment in France sheds light on issues of social pressure, especially in the age of reality television. People want to get famous, no matter what the cost. In this way, deference to authority may be even more of a threat now than ever before. Read More

Self-care and the Devil You Know

I recently had the chance to think about the juxtaposition between what most of us know we should do to take care of our health and what many of us actually do related to forging a healthy lifestyle. Read More

Aging and Cinema Meet—On Good Terms

Women are finally being looked at more accurately in cinema, though with some constraints... Read More

Ambiguity and The Blogosphere

Many topics addressed on the blogosphere create enormous anxiety when answers to a question are not known. When articles do not provide definitive answers, there tend to be a lot more negative and even hostile comments. This is understandable. Ambiguity is hard to tolerate. Read More

Tamara McClintock Greenberg, Psy.D., M.S., is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

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About 21st Century Aging

My blog addresses issues that impact us all as we age. Topics covered include problems unique to women as they get older, but also addresses the struggles of both men and women. I talk about the ways that modern medical technology has changed all of our lives as we age in a time of an uncertain future of increased longevity. Though I always consider modern medical research as well as health psychology perspectives into what I write, I often consider psychoanalytic ideas as important informants regarding how I understand human behavior.