ABSTRACT
This will likely be the least documented chapter of this book. There is a dearth of research into therapeutic effectiveness with older adults or even documented discussions of clinical experience. Although there have been recent considerable gains in developing methods in psychological assessment with older adults, the field of geriatric psychotherapy has lagged far behind. This is particularly true of psychodynamic approaches to working with older adults, and by the same token, discussions of brief psychodynamic methods with older adults are almost nonexistent. Despite Freud’s (1905/1953) classic opinion that older persons have very limited capacity for psychoanalytic exploration, most clinical gero-psychologists strongly challenge such a pessimistic view (Duffy, 1999b; Semel, 1996).
