Specialty
Therapy for Adults in Midlife and Beyond
Midlife and the decades after it bring their own questions: what you want from the time ahead, how much to do for a parent who needs more help, and who you are as long-held roles change. Vanessa Gross, LMFT, offers online therapy anywhere in Texas to people in midlife and later life, including adults 65 and up.
Taking Stock in Midlife
Somewhere in your 40s or 50s, you may find yourself comparing the life you have with the one you expected. The questions can be quiet but persistent: whether the work still fits, what your relationship has become, and whether there is still time for something you put off.
Therapy lets you take those questions seriously without pushing you toward a dramatic answer. Sometimes the result is a big change, and sometimes it is a set of smaller ones, like protecting time for friends, renegotiating roles at home or setting down a goal that no longer fits.
If your questions center on work, the page on career change goes further. Vanessa trained in medicine before she became a therapist, so she has faced that kind of decision herself.
Caring for Aging Parents
A parent's need for help often arrives in pieces: a fall, a car they should no longer drive, a worried call from a neighbor. Before long you may be handling appointments, bills and paperwork, sometimes from a distance, alongside your own work and family.
The emotional side can be harder than the logistics. Old tensions between siblings can resurface, setting limits can bring guilt, and you may grieve for a parent who is still here but changing. Sessions give you a place to sort through those feelings and decide what you can realistically take on.
When Adult Children Leave or Move Back Home
When the last child moves out, the week loses the structure that school calendars and family dinners once gave it. You may notice how much of your identity rested on being needed every day, or find that time alone with a partner feels unfamiliar.
An adult child moving back home raises different questions: what the house rules are now, how much to help with money or a job search, and how to treat a grown child as an adult under the same roof. Vanessa can help you work out where your limits are and how to say them plainly.
Health Changes, Retirement and Losing Peers
Health changes, your own or a partner's, can bring adjustments nobody planned for: less energy, new limits on what you can do, more time spent on appointments and tests. Retirement can leave long, open days where a schedule used to be, and building a routine that feels like yours takes time.
Losing friends and peers, through death, illness or moves, is one of the harder parts of later life, and loneliness can build slowly as your circle gets smaller. Therapy can help with the grief itself and with the practical work of staying connected. If loss or loneliness has brought you to a point of crisis or thoughts of suicide, call or text 988, or call 911 if you are in immediate danger.
Online Therapy for Adults 65 and Up
Vanessa welcomes older adults, including people trying therapy for the first time in their 60s, 70s or later. You meet with her for 60 minutes by secure video from your own home, which can suit you if you would rather not drive to appointments.
You will need a phone, tablet or computer with a camera, and a private place to talk. If video calls are new to you, the guide to how online therapy works walks through what to expect. You also need to be physically in Texas for each session, so if you travel to see family out of state, plan sessions for the weeks you are back.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
It can be, and the first contact is by phone rather than video. The free 15-minute phone consultation lets you ask questions and get a sense of Vanessa before you try a video session. If the technology is the part that worries you, say so on the call, and you can talk through what the first 60-minute session will involve.
Therapy can help you get clear on your own position before the next family conversation: what you are able to do, what you cannot do, and what you need from the others. Disagreements about a parent's care often pull siblings back into old family roles, and noticing that can take some heat out of the conversation. Vanessa can also help you plan how to raise hard topics, like money or a move to assisted living.
Yes. Resentment often points to an expectation or limit that has not been said out loud, such as how long the arrangement will last or who pays for what. Sessions can help you decide what you want the arrangement to look like and how to raise it without the talk turning into an old argument.
Related Pages
Life Transitions
Online therapy for Texas adults adjusting to a move, separation or divorce, an empty house, retirement or a new caregiving role.Read More
Career Change
Online therapy in Texas for adults leaving a long-held career path or starting over, with support for identity, money worry and grief.Read MoreGrief Therapy
Read More
Online in Texas
How online therapy with Vanessa Gross, LMFT, works for adults and couples anywhere in Texas, from the first phone call to regular sessions.Read More
A gentler next step
You don't have to know exactly what to say.
A free 15-minute phone consultation is a simple place to begin.