Working psychologically with older adults

[Lyndi]

Hi there,

I'm doing some research on working psychologically with older adults, in particular what inspires or prevents the choice of counselling professionals to work with older adults (aged 65 and above). I would be very interested to hear anyone's opinions on this as a starting point to this work.

Thanks,
Lynda

p.s. apologies to anyone who has read a similar request of mine on another forum, as you can imagine I am trying to get as many opinions as possible

[Jenny]

Hi Lynda,

Sorry for the late reply but I hope you've been successful in getting responses to your question.

I may not be the best placed to answer this as I'm not a counsellor and am not in training anymore either, although personally the idea of counselling older adults has never really crossed my mind. Counselling in a university or school environment had, but for some reason older adults hadn't. Maybe because I haven't experienced older age yet.. well, I'm 31 so I have somewhat lol but I haven't experienced being over 65 yet. I don't know if I'd be able to relate to issues.. and also I'd be scared the client wouldn't value my input as i'd be younger than them. Having said that i would have that same issue with any client, no matter what age, but that could be more my issues than anything else!

Enough waffle from me i think :)
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