Counseling and Life-Span Development

Does a client's age affect the counselling process? What special challenges do older clients present for the counsellor? In this book, Thomas links life-span concepts directly to the daily concerns of counsellors. With the focus on major types of problems that bring clients to counselling, Thomas integrates current research with counselling techniques to enable counsellors to better understand the relationship between changes in personality traits and counselling elderly clients. He identifies key decisions that are typically made in the counselling process and determines what kinds of age-related information will positively influence the counselling process. Key concepts and common approaches to counselling are introduced in the first part; chapters in Part Two offer information about six successive periods of the life span, with descriptions of characteristics common to people and their social settings at different stages of life; their application to counselling problems often met within those stages are then illustrated. The closing chapter provides further sources of new information that may help counsellors treat clients. Enhancing counsellors' understanding of the relationship between life stages and the conduct of therapy, this volume is useful to both professionals and advanced students in counselling, psychology and social work.