This multiauthored introductory textbook could not have been conceived or brought to fruition 10 or 15 years ago. Indeed, at that time relatively little attention was accorded to the psychological needs of older adults. The general tenor of the field then was that older adults would not benefit from psychological intervention. As we now know, this was a faulty assumption that has been discredited with empirical data. Indeed, clinical research data adduced, primar ily in the last decade, clearly documents that older adults do benefit from specific psychotherapies that are tailored to their...

In The American Father, Wade C. Mackey documents a wealth of infor mation demonstrating the vast benefits to society when its children are raised in families with fathers. The biopsychosocial approach Mackey in human employs is consistent with the current treatment of topics development. This approach-which is grounded in a variety of diverse sources-assumes that we understand little about people when we study them a bit at a time; rather, the fullness of the individual requires a fullness of examination. For example, in the cases of fathers, we note that humans do not reproduce alone; after...

This volume proposes a theoretical integration of several major streams in contemporary psychological theory about adult development and therapy. It adopts the perspective that there are steps in development throughout the adult period, and that they are characterized by a union of the cognitive and affective, the self and the other, and idea with idea (in second-order collective abstractions). That is, they are at once postformal in terms of Piaget's theory, sociocultural in terms ofVygotsky's theory, and postmodern with the latter perspective providing an integrating theme. The affirmative,...

From time to time, professional journals and edited volumes devote some of their pages to considerations of pain and aging as they occur among the aged in different cultures and populations. One starts from several reasonable assumptions, among them that aging per se is not a disease process, yet the risk and frequency of disease processes increase with ongoing years. The physical body's functioning and ability to restore all forms of damage and insult slow down, the immune system becomes compromised, and the slow-growing pathologies reach their critical mass in the later years. The...

Over the last two decades, the number of persons over 65 has increased by 65%. Handbook of Clinical Geropsychology focuses attention on how the contributions of clinical psychology address the problems faced by this enormous population. In the first part, chapters cover a historical perspective, clinical geropsychology and U.S. federal policy, psychodynamic issues, and other key topics. Part II details assessment and treatment for a wide range of disorders affecting the elderly. Part III considers such special issues as family caregiving, minority issues, physical activity, and elder...

In this book Jan D. Sinnott synthesizes her 20 years of research on lifespan cognitive development to describe the growth of complex (or postformal') thought in adults. She shows specifically how adults improve mentally over a lifetime and learn to think in more complex and wiser ways. Applications of postformal thought are demonstrated in such diverse areas as - family relations - adult education - personal identity - and spirituality. Chapters examine relations between postformal thought and pertinent variables such as age, health, memory, and vocabulary. Other sections deal with...

De cibo quod superest nobis sufficit; oportet gratias agere. Some elders have accepted this proposition, although seldom with enthu siasm. Gerontologists also have been burdened with the adage: "Leftovers are good enough for us, and we should be grateful for them." I remember how a clerk tried to palm off astale and cheap cigar to her octogenarian customer. He knew better and carne away with a far superior smoke. The clerk fumed, "What does he need a good cigar for? Who is he to be particular " In this and in many other ways, elders often have labored under the sociocultural expectation that...

The author proposes a theory of the development of consciousness in which ego is the central agent of socialization and culture and the driving force behind individual self-control and self-regulation. He reviews the literature on identity and narrative; outlines the fields of intellectual, self, moral, and consciousness development; and discusses the evidence indicating that the development of consciousness trancends the limitations of conventional ego development.

This volume is an outgrowth ofcontemporary research on development over the adult lifespan, which by now has burgeoned and developed both nationally and internationally. However, for us, the impetus to be involved in this area was spawned and nurtured by our initial association with the Society for Research in Adult Development (SRAD) with its origins some 15 years ago by Michael Commonsand his associates inCambridge, Massachusetts. Throughthegood will and support of this society, we also became, and are still, heavily involved with the Journal of Adult Development and the Kluwer-Plenum...

That painting is at least in part an expression of the painter's personality is obvious from the differences between very impulsive and very controlled painters - between the paintings of a Picasso, for example, and a Piet Mondriaan. But these differences have not been looked at in a controlled setting. In this book, Machotka sets out to understand the images produced by a broad sample of students and to connect them to the students' inner lives - to their interpersonal relations, their wishes and fears, their impulses and inhibitions. Their image making was followed in detail and their...