ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the value attached to the lives of older people. Running throughout is a concern to legitimize the spending of time on listening to their life stories, and of listening to them being told as far as possible in the words and style of the teller. The ‘therapeutic format’ (i.e. the who, where, when, what and how long of therapy) can be variable – from one conversation at a hospital bedside through to twenty or more sessions over weeks and months or longer. The approach described is ‘metatheoretical’ and can therefore be integrated with a range of therapeutic orientations. It is anticipated that many readers may be familiar with the substance of life story work but perhaps not have conceptualized their practice in metatheoretical terms. Pseudonyms are used throughout for clients’ names. The terms ‘older people/adults’ and ‘people in late life’ are used interchangeably and can be interpreted flexibly as applying to people in their sixties or seventies and older. Furthermore, there is no reason why the approach may not be used at other stages of the lifespan – particularly at points of development and transition. Readers interested in applying the ideas in this chapter to older adults with significant cognitive impairment are referred to Cheston’s (1997) work on story and metaphor with people with dementia and to selected references from the bibliographies produced by Richardson (1995) on psychotherapy with people with dementia and Bender (1995) on reminiscence.
