Main description:

Traditional training in counseling and psychotherapy makes minimal distinctions on the ages of the client and therapist in the treatment process. Therapy Over 50: Aging Issues in Psychotherapy and the Therapist's Life highlights how therapy is frequently a very different process for the older client and therapist. Specifically, this book explores: a) how therapists over 50 (or approaching that life transition) experience, struggle, and enjoy doing therapy in
ways that are different from when they were younger (this includes their special challenges, adaptations, fears, and joys); and b) the landscape related to working clinically with aging clients, and those approaches and strategies that work best with this population. The text also includes both current
research and classic literature on the subject of aging issues in therapy, as well as current excerpts from interviews the authors will conduct with some of the most notable aging figures in the fields of counseling, social work, marriage and family therapy, and clinical psychology.

Contents:

Part I -- Aging in Personal and Professional Development
1. What it Means to be Older
2. The Culture of Aging

Part II -- The Aging Therapist
3. The Senior Therapist
4. Aging Losses-and Gains
5. Tricks of the Trade: What Experience Teaches Us
6. On Wisdom and Creativity

Part III -- Aging Clients
7. Myths and Misconceptions of What It's like to be Old
8. Living in the Past
9. Common Issues and Challenges of the Elderly

Part IV -- Journeys of Wisdom and Redemption
10. Aging (is mostly) a State of Mind
11. Specialized Strategies for Working with Older Clients
12. Death Stalks Us All
13. Dreams Lost and Found

References
Index