Psychological Assessment and Therapy with Older Adults

Due to improvements in health and healthcare, the older adult population is rapidly expanding within the developed world. However, more and more older people require some form of psychological support at some point in their later years. The types of problems faced by this population are quite distinct and often more complex than those faced by younger adults, and throw up many new challenges-in both assessment and treatment. Though there are books available that focus individually on assessment or treatment, few have attempted to combine the two into a single framework. In this book, the authors argue that psychological assessment needs to be more tightly integrated with therapy, especially with older adult clients. Uniquely, it presents an integrated framework for psychological assessment and therapy with older adults-the Contextual Adult Lifespan Theory for Adapting Psychotherapy (CALTAP). CALTAP is a framework for applying knowledge about developmental, social/contextual, and cohort/generational factors that influence age differences in response to psychological assessment and therapy. Throughout the book, the authors discuss the ways that psychological practice with older clients is different from, and similar to, work with younger adult clients. Organized around common diagnoses and issues that present in work with older adults, the book also uses case examples from the authors' own experiences-taking the reader from first contact to initial assessment to therapy and ongoing assessment. This text is valuable for all mental health professionals looking for a solid theoretical basis for the practice of assessment and therapy with older clients, students in graduate courses looking at later lifespan issues, and educators looking for material to enhance generalist psychotherapy courses with a lifespan perspective. Book jacket.