At the Confluence of Memory and Meaning—Life Review With Older Adults and Families: Using Narrative Therapy and the Expressive Arts to Re-member and Re-author Stories of Resilience

Abstract

In this article, the author focuses on ways in which counselors can adapt narrative therapy and expressive arts therapy techniques to cultivate and support their clients’ creativity for use in the life review process. The counselor acts in a cocreative and consultative role, drawing on the client’s expertise about his or her own life and constructing a collaborative process that also can engage the client’s family, caregivers, and important others in the client’s community. The writer suggests expressive arts techniques such as bibliotherapy, journaling, and the making of memory books, self boxes, life maps, and time capsules, along with videography as among a myriad of ways to tap into an ongoing creative meaning-making process necessary for life review. The collaborative process described facilitates deconstructing problem stories and constructing unique outcomes in their place for the client and quite possibly for the family and important others.

Keywords

life review expressive arts therapy older adults families,and caregivers narrative therapy and older adults

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Appalachian Expressive Arts Collective . (2003). Expressive arts therapy: Creative process in art and life. Boone, NC: Parkway Publishers.

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Butler, R. (1963). The life review: An interpretation of reminiscence in the aged. Psychiatry, 26, 65-76.

Dhooper, S. S. , Green, S. M. , Huff, M. B. , & Austin-Murphy, J. (1993). Efficacy of a group approach to reducing depression in nursing home elderly residents. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 20(3/4), 87-100.

Erikson, E. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

Farrell-Kirk, R. (2001). Secrets, symbols, synthesis, and safety: The role of boxes in art therapy. American Journal of Art Therapy, 39, 88-92.

Fry, P. S. (1983). Structured and unstructured reminiscence training and depression among the elderly. Clinical Gerontologist, 1, 15-37.

Grimm, R. (2003). Narrative therapy with older adults. In J. L. Ronch & J. A. Goldfield (Eds.), Mental wellness in aging: Strengths-based approaches (pp. 237-271). Baltimore, MD: Health Professions Press.

Myers, J. E. (1989). Adult children and aging parents. Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

10.

Roth, S. , & Chasen, R. (1994). Entering one another’s worlds of meaning and imagination: Dramatic enactment and narrative couple therapy. In M. F. Hoyt (Ed.), Constructive therapies (pp. 189-216). New York: Guilford.

11.

Serrano, J. P. , Latorre, J. M. , Gatz, M. , & Montanes, J. (2004). Life review therapy using autobiographical retrieval practice for older adults with depressive symptomatology. Psychology and Aging, 19(2), 272-277.

12.

Welty, E. (1984). One writer’s beginnings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

13.

White, M. , & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: Norton.

14.

Woodworth, J. (2003). Bringing art into life: Creating maps. In Appalachian Expressive Arts Collaborative (Ed.), Expressive arts therapy: Creative process in art and life (p. 144). Boone, NC: Parkway Publishers.