Looking into Later Life

It does not aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the whole field of either old age or psychoanalysis, but to share an approach to thinking useful to clinical psychologists and psychotherapists working with people coming for consultation and intensive psychoanalytic treatment in the latter part of the lifespan. Though each chapter is different and stands in its own right, there are certain psychoanalytic concepts that appear and reappear again and again. Specifically these are the concepts of transference, countertransference, and projective identification, which are the theoretical and clinical bedrock on which psychoanalytic psychotherapy rests. Each chapter provides a different lens to the reader that will broaden and deepen understanding of such core concepts and their straightforward applicability in strengthening the quality of treatment.Part of The Tavistock Clinic SeriesContentsIntroduction PART I Overview: present and past1 Two riddles and an overview by Rachael Davenhill2 In the beginning by Rachael DavenhillPART II Mainly depression3 The metapsychology of depression by Cyril Couve4 Assessment by Rachael Davenhill5 Individual psychotherapy by Rachael Davenhill6 Couples psychotherapy: separateness or separation? An account of work with a couple entering later life by Anne Amos and Andrew Balfour7 Tragical-comical-historical-pastoral: groups and group therapy in the third age by Caroline Garland8 The experience of an illness: the resurrection of an analysis in the work of recovery by Ronald Markillie PART III Observation and consultation9 Psychodynamic observation and old age by Rachael Davenhill, Andrew Balfour and Margaret Rustin10 Consultation at work by Maxine Dennis and David Armstrong11 Where angels fear to tread: idealism, despondency, and inhibition in thought in hospital nursing by Anna DartingtonPART IV Mainly dementia12 Only connect-the links between early and later life by Margot Waddell13 No truce with the furies: issues of containment in the provision of care for people with dementia and those who care for them by Rachael Davenhill 14 Facts, phenomenology, and psychoanalytic contributions to dementia care by Andrew Balfour 15 The pink ribbon by A. S. Byatt 16 Caring for a relative with dementia-who is the sufferer? by Heather Wood17 My unfaithful brain by Rebekah Pratt and Anna Dartington18 Conveying the experience of Alzheimer's Disease through art: the later paintings of William Utermohlen by Patrice Polini