R129: Therapeutic Perspectives on Aging

This Reading Course will examine aging issues for both our clients and ourselves. Michael Ventura puts aside pop bromides to look at what it means to move past "middle-age" and become old. Walter Lowe explores the difference between aging therapists who get better and those who don't. Terry Hargrave offers a model for helping clients become more effective caregivers for aging parents, while Marian Sandmaier looks at what it means for grown-up children to confront old wounds with their parents. Jay Lebow looks at what research tells us about both facts and fictions about aging, while feminist pioneer Betty Friedan confronts the broader social issues involved in "the age mystique."

Course Readings

When You’re 64: You May Be Ready to Retire, But What about Mom and Dad? by Terry Hargrave

Across the Great Divide: Middle Age in the Rear-View Mirror by Michael Ventura

In Praise of the Older Therapist: Probing the Heart of Clinical Wisdom by Walter Lowe Betty Friedan Takes on the Age Mystique by Richard Simon

Aging: Fact and Fiction by Jay Lebow

War Stories: Helping Old Soldiers Find the Will to Live by Barry Jacobs

Healing the Family’s Oldest Rifts by Marian Sandmaier

Learning Objectives

1. Identify interventions to help clients who are caregivers
2. Name 3 ways that aging adds to the older therapist's skills
3. Discuss the research evidence that counters myths about aging
4. Describe the role of the therapist in overcoming family rifts with aging parents