Shift the attention from losses and flaws to strengths

Psychology textbooks paint older stages in life as a one-size-fits-all grandmother role

Dr. Cecilia Dintino and Hannah Murray Starobin are the co-founders of Twisting the Plot, a program that helps women to give new directions to their lives

Sometimes it happens that you find an answer when the question has not even fully been formulated in the mind. So, I guess I had my serendipity moment when Cecilia Dintino got in touch with me through these pages. Dr Dintino is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Columbia University Medical Center and faculty member at New York University’s Graduate Program in Drama therapy. 

Together with Hannah Murray Starobin, a long term friend and a licensed psychotherapist, they have created Twisting the Plot, a program designed to help women give new direction to their lives past the age of 50. Hannah’s is another amazing story: she is the daughter of Donald Murray, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer who chronicled twenty years of his own late life passage in “Now and Then,” a weekly column for The Boston Globe that Hanna has now rediscovered and is transforming into a book. The couple is also working on a book describing their approach to taking charge of one’s life.

With Cecilia and Hannah, we had a very stimulating exchange of ideas. The result is a long read - so maybe you want to grab a cup of tea - but I hope you will find plenty of seeds to grow new perspectives.

How did your journey with Twisting the Plot begin?

As we were crossing into our 50s, we started to notice a few distressing things. For one, we felt invisible and irrelevant and it was the odd experience of fading into the background, somehow combined with a murky picture of what is coming next. We were also experiencing significant menopausal symptoms, bodily discomfort and mood shifts that contributed to this sense of distress.

The future seemed to be one of dread. Family members and friends were becoming ill or dying. Other friends were suddenly faced with unexpected divorce. We then started to notice these same stories (in the form of complaints) from our clients. In April of 2016, The New York Times published an article declaring that the suicide rates for women over 45 had increased by 63% since 1999. We met with a group of friends over 50 to discuss life and situations and the women all echoed our concerns: “What’s next for me?” “Who am I now?” “I don’t’ feel good.” “I don’t know how to let go of the past and move forward.”  “ I don’t’ have anything to look forward to.” 

Why did you decide to focus your attention in particular on the over 50s?

There was the anti-aging campaign. At first, many of our women’s gatherings focused on our bodies, botox, fitness, diet, and staying young. There was also a defensiveness, anger and, of course, shame. We started declaring this a mental health crisis. Women have added 40 more years to their life span and have filled it with fear and resentment. Older women are pushed out of society and deemed benign at best, but often crazy and off course.

We gave talk after talk about the crisis of “no maps” for women over 50: the cultural guidelines and social rituals fall off after 50. The only destination is death, unless you deem the ritual of moving into assisted living as a passage. It was a gloomy perspective. At one point, Cecilia was in a full-on rant declaring her mission to spread the word about the horrors that befall women of a certain age, when suddenly Hannah got a glint in her eye. “Hmmmm, maybe this is a good thing,” she said” “Maybe, ‘no maps’ is a good thing. Maybe this means we can make it up?” After that, our mission completely changed and we see the open pathways as opportunity and possibility.

What have you learned so far since you began to map the uncharted territory of maturity? 

Since the passage from 50 to 100 (a potential age for many women to reach) is wide open and uncharted, we see it as a creative venture, an artistic journey. Of course we all need tools to embark on a creative project. We have looked at research on change and development and combined that with some creative exercises. Cecilia is a drama therapist as well as a psychologist and Hannah had a long career in professional theater so we do use a lot of story, role, and improvisational techniques during our sessions.

The interesting thing is that while we have been working with women and developing our Twisting methods – the world of women over 50 is opening up.  There seems to be a cultural twist happening. It’s all quite thrilling.

How important is it to get ready for this phase in our lives?

We think readiness is key. What we mean by that is we want women to take an active role in their evolution. The passive posture, going along for the ride into ageist oblivion, will not work. The current that is available is strong (feel bad about your body, retire, withdraw and become passive), that’s why we have to deliberately get into the driver’s seat, to create new roles and identities, support each other’s emergence and be the artists of our own destinies. This takes skills, courage and lots of support. It also takes imagination and this, in particular, is why we find women need encouragement and a little refresher course on.

We’re used to thinking that psychology helps us to clarify things from our past. What contribution can it instead give when we look at our future?

This is a perfect question!! You are right, psychology and psychotherapy for the most part have a tradition of clarifying the past, over and over with the past. Everything goes back to one’s parents and traumas. But there are some new twists to this orientation and some fields are more future-focused. 

In fact, most of our motivation, development and contributions to the world come from future-focused imagining and thinking. To be pulled forward in our lives, we need to have some idea of where we are going and who we are becoming. For women over 50 this requires some envisioning, imagining, and risk-taking.

That said, we do in fact do one workshop about the past. We think our stories all hold little treasures, narratives of strength and unique plot twists that we help women identify and reframe for future rewriting.

Do you agree that we are near-sighted in the way we look at aging? We have dissected every aspect and stage of a child’s development and then we go away with the considering adulthood as a giant, undifferentiated macro-cosmos...

So true. Undifferentiated and not diversified. Psychology textbooks paint older stages as this one-size-fits-all grandmother role. They paint images of a woman whose cognitive and physical health is in decline or diminishment. They speak about a waiting period and discuss when one should retire, let go, manage illness, disappear. There are some theories about generativity (the creating ability, ed) and legacy building, but the paths outlined are narrow and under-realized.

Ageism is huge!! So much of what we think and believe about age has gone underground and burrowed into our awareness. We see things that are ageist as fact. This script is going to take some time to rewrite.

Talking about scripts, what are the similarities and differences for the women who participate in Twisting The Plot’s workshops? 

We have met so many women with so many varied stories, but they generally belong to three overall categories. First, the women whose plots have been twisted unexpectedly. A lot of women who take our workshops are going through unplanned divorces, or losses (death of spouse, parents, children, friends), empty nest, troubled adult children, illness, depression, cancer diagnoses, sudden job loss, financial struggles. They are presented with life twists that leave them feeling unclear about who they are or what they should do next. They don’t know how to feel their feelings and are frightened of taking next steps.

The second “group” is composed of women who haven’t really met with adversity, but feel restless, under utilized and want to do something else or be someone else. They have no idea where to start. These women often feel worried about making change that will upset those who depend on them, or they feel foolish for wanting more.

Then, there are the women that have always twisted their plots and live for transformation and reinvention, but they are suddenly faced with a lack of imagination and direction.

What are the obstacles women face when they want to imagine and embark themselves in new beginnings? 

 The first obstacle is ageism. It’s the insidious thinking that puts up the biggest blockades. You can recognize it by self-defeating thoughts like “It’s too late for me.” “I’ve missed the boat.” Then there is the obstacle of rigidity. Women tell us they are not playful or creative. It’s like we forgot how to be imaginative or at least we don’t see our futures as roads of new becomings and potential. 

Our firm beliefs about ourselves and our flaws are another obstacle. We are so fixated on our flaws that we fail to see of our strengths. And then of course, there are obstacles in our culture. We have to be brave to charter new roles and definitions, we have to be able to withstand the push-backs and the attempts to diminish our presence. That’s why, to overcome this we need to actively support one another.

On the other hand, what resources are the women you meet capable to pull out?

The resources are mind blowing. Women excel at innovation, storytelling, adapting, listening, and intuiting. The women in our workshops awe us with their wisdom, their capacity to support one another and their endless supply of humor, grace and wit. Also, women are capable of managing hardship, holding chaos and leadership. After one workshop, we decided maybe we should start an army of women over 50 to go out and make change in the world.

What strategies, activities, approaches have proved particularly effective in twisting the plots?

We have developed a nine steps/strategies, with a lot smaller twists along the way. In particular, we help women to identify and open their mindset about themselves and their beliefs. This is important to gain room to evolve and, moving to the new steps, picture our future selves by using our imagination.

Another important element is to be able to feel our feelings and tolerate uncertainty in our lives. So, instead of activating the natural flee response, we show how this process works and how to thrive through transformation.

Discovering one’s potential is another essential step to look at one’s story anew. It’s this awareness that, in turn, will become handy when we proceed to identify new purposes, new goals and the action to turn them into reality, in connection with others. 

What are the three most precious suggestions you would give to women who don’t have a chance to participate in one of your workshops?

First: develop a growth mindset, which means challenging limiting thoughts by questioning yourself, and become super curious and open to new ideas and possibilities. Second: reignite your imagination and believe in a future self that thrills you. Decide to make your person and your life a work of art, do not worry about what others think is possible and do not make choices of who you can be, how you can dress, or what you can do based on the past. It’s a new era for us all. Third: lead with your strengths instead of your losses and your flaws. Take an assessment either through (Clifton Strengths Finder or VIA: Character Strengths survey ) and let the findings guide you.