ABSTRACT
Adult children may be queuing up for child care and partners may need time, either because they are frail, needing help or because they are robust, wanting a companion for adventures. Therapists should check with their insurers whether they will continue to be covered after they have retired and ceased payments. The mixture of loss and relief, mentioned by contributors, is apparent in how the retiring therapist deals with the concrete tools of their trade: the room, the books and the couch. In small towns, as in minority groups in large towns, there will be more chance of retired therapists crossing paths with former clients and this will make the importance of lifelong confidentiality particularly apparent. A proportion of psychotherapists come to therapy precisely because they did not have happy childhoods, but many of them have achieved earned security through their own therapies.
