Old age is a unique life stage and it involves continuous growth. One broad and important approach to working successfully with the aged is to treat them as adults (Cox & Waller, 1991). When they are treated with respect and empathy, they are likely to respond appropriately. Another strategy for promoting change is to modify the attitudes of people within the systems in which they live. Many societal attitudes negatively influence older people’s attitudes about themselves.
Often, older adults act old because their environments encourage and support such behavior. Hansen & Prather (1980, in Gladding, 2000) point out that American society equates age with obsolescence and orders its priorities accordingly. Therefore, as purported by Gladding (2002), counselors must become educators and advocates for change in societal attitudes if destructive age restrictions and stereotypes are to be overcome.
In working with the aged, counselors often become student of life and older persons become their teachers. When this type of open attitude is achieved clients are more likely to deal with the most important events in their lives, and counselors are more prone to learn about different dimensions of life and be helpful in the process. The counselors also should help older adults in developing healthy coping strategies to deal with specific and immediate problems they face (Gladding, 2000). Victor et al.
(2003) postulate that it is important that the counselors and the psychotherapists have basic understanding of theories of healthy aging that includes familiarity with the research on cognitive, social, psychological, biological, and sociocultural aspects of aging. They should be familiar with the strategies commonly used by older adults for coping with age-related changes. There is a need to understand the developmental and life span perspective regarding the continuities and discontinuities between younger and older adulthood.
Working with persons who are from earlier-born cohorts can be challenging, values may differ from those of the therapist, word usage may differ, and the prevalence of disorders may vary by cohort. Therefore, therapists who work with older clients are likely to need a keener sense of history than those who work with their own cohort and with later-born cohorts (Knight & McCallum, 1998 & Victor et al. , 2003).
There are times when working with older adults will not be very different for the therapist than working with younger adults. If the older client (a) has presenting problems that are similar with which the therapist is familiar, (b) is free from cognitive impairment or serious physical illness, and (c) is living within the age-integrated community or in a setting with which the therapist is familiar, then therapy with older adults is substantially similar to therapy with young adults (Knight & McCallum, 1998).