ABSTRACT
Time has an important resonance to older adults, with the concept of limited time taking on a new meaning, as older people face their own mortality in more immediate ways. Brief therapy can be said to recapitulate the central dilemma of late life: time, mortality and loss. The ‘last chance’ phenomena observed by Pearl King (1974) can serve to mobilise creative capacities and desires. Brief therapy can provide the patient with the opportunity to review their life, reworking their story to enable them to embrace the life they have lived, to mourn and to accept. As Gorsuch (1998) comments, such reflection takes courage when time is short and opportunities are steadily closing down.
