A new start after 60: ‘I became a psychotherapist at 69 and found my calling’

She used her pension to train for a new career. She has a thriving psychotherapy practice in Fredrikstad, Norway, at 74 years old. It was the best thing I've ever done for myself.

The four-year course was in Jutland, a peninsula on the west coast ofDenmark, where for a week Harris was among sand dunes with this amazing empty wild beach right outside. Harris drove for five hours to get there.

She was never made to feel different even though she was at least 20 years older than everyone else. Her experience was a calling. She says that practicing psychotherapy helps her to understand the wordvocation.

Harris has had many jobs over the years. She trained as an architect at university and worked as an architect for a long time while raising four children.

The world offered more possibilities than I had ever imagined, Harris says. She doesn't think these moves are reinvention, they are gradual shifts.

You would be amazed at how one progresses from architecture to photography. She says it's via a bookshop. She and her husband wanted to open a shop that sold books about folklore, mythology and tradition. The seeds of therapy were sown in the shop. People open up and talk in a small bookshop.

Harris says that her therapy side was in the background when she taught photography. She worked at a refuge for people who had been abused. She had a short period of counseling in her 40s. When she turned 60, she decided to write letters to people who had been influential in my life and probably weren't aware of it. She couldn't find her former counsellor.

In 1991, Harris and her husband separated, and six years later, some Norwegian friends asked her to house-sit. She went with her youngest child. She was a photographer and learned Norwegian.

There were many reasons why I moved to Norway. She says that some were to come and find something and some were to put distance between them.

Harris is able to do things. She had to learn to speak Danes first so she could take the best course. She says that sometimes you can feel stuck, but that is how she has lived her life.

Harris's parents liked to move. Before she went to university, she had nine homes.

She has lived in her flat for longer than any other place she has been. It feels very rewarding to receive fresh calls to her practice each week. One can give back as a result of a long life.

• Have you taken a new direction in your life after the age of 60?