Counselling Older Clients

`This is a warm, compassionate, wise book, the crystallization of Anne Orbach's many years experience of psychotherapy and counselling with the elderly people. It opens up many vistas, questions and creative possibilities for work in this field' - British Journal of Psychotherapy

`Counselling Older Clients is a handbook for practitioners, trainers and student counsellors who are interested in the experience of ageing and old age. The book offers a good beginning and a functional training tool for practitioners new to the field' - Ageing and Society

`This book is wise for its years! Offers so much to all of us - not just those of us working with the `elderly' There is something to delight, inform and challenge everyone' - Quality in Ageing

`.... invaluable to those in counselling training, for carers working with the older age group and for experienced counsellors who maybe interested in working with older clients - Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal

Counselling Older Clients is a much-needed guide for practitioners working with older clients in a range of settings. Highlighting the stereotypes and prejudices which frequently exist around ageing, Ann Orbach gives practical advice on how to develop an approach to counselling which is both age-affirmative and thoroughly in tune with the needs of older clients.

The book explores the difficulties which people commonly experience as they get older and through examples, shows how client's can be helped in areas such as:

-adjusting to retirement

-the loss of a partner

-coming to terms with ageing.

Examining different methods of working with older clients, including brief and open-ended contracts and the use of stories to facilitate the therapeutic process, Counselling Older Clients is invaluable reading for counsellors and other professionals working with older people.

Age Affirmative Practice
Counsellors, Clients and Settings
Theory and Practice
Time-Limited or Open-Ended
Beginning and Ending
Use and Value of Stories
Obstacles to Change
Avoidance, Resistance and Other Factors
Working with Difference
Relationships and Withdrawal
Loss
Retirement, Bereavement and Diminishment
Facing Death
How Do We Evaluate Counselling?
Some Useful Exercises