(1971) said, “Most of us have a half-conscious and irrational fear that one day we will find ourselves old, as if suddenly we will fall off a cliff, and that what we will be then has little to do with what we are now” (p. 45). Appreciating this—and after the investigation and evaluation of current wellness levels and practices in the areas of physical health, emotions, nutrition, play, spirituality, finances, family, and friends—clients should have an expanded vision of possibilities for successful aging and should know what wellness practices will help them have greater control over their future. People need to be empowered to prescribe a life course that best fits who they are and who they want to become. A sense of being in control is essential. Guided Practice Exercise 3.10 encourages counselors to examine their strengths and weaknesses as they relate to working with older clients. Developing the right knowledge, skills, and attitudes is critical to effectively provide services to an elderly client population.
Guided Practice Exercise 3.10
You have been trained to provide counseling services to clients from young adulthood through middle age. Your knowledge of older adults comes primarily from your experiences with your grandparents and their friends. You are now expected to provide counseling services to an older clientele (65+). How would you prepare yourself to work with this client population? Do you believe you can use the same strategies and interventions you have used previously with these older clients?
Change will occur as people control their lives and work to implement and optimize their vision for successful aging. It will also occur because living and aging means that the body changes, friends and relatives die, and many aspects of community and society are transformed. It is imperative to provide older adults with conceptual models and coping skills for handling change. These strategies should help them deal with the uncomfortable feelings that often accompany change and thus make them more effective with their change efforts. Competent counselors are already knowledgeable in these areas and need only to target their professional abilities to the area of promoting successful aging.
Attributes of Successful Practitioners
Counseling is a unique profession requiring a particular set of qualities. In order to be successful, all counselors need to have the following qualities: comfort with ambiguity, empathy, good boundaries, and belief in the capacity for change (LoFrisco, 2012). Counselors cannot always clearly see the results of their work and must learn to be comfortable in situations where they won’t have all of the facts. They must also have a particular kind of empathy and balance it with accountability. A good counselor holds clients accountable for their actions. Counseling is a profession that has a higher risk for burnout, therefore counselors with good boundaries understand their limitations, know where their responsibility for the change process ends and where the client’s begins, and establish policies and procedures and apply them consistently. Lastly, good counselors believe that people can and do change and provide optimism and hope when there is none. They are realistic about the change process and are able to help clients set attainable goals (LoFrisco, 2012).
General Attributes Needed for Success
The qualities and actions of effective therapists, based on theory, policy, and research evidence, can guide others toward continual improvement. Various therapists delivering different treatments in various contexts will emphasize some of these important qualities more than others (Wampold, 2011). Effective therapists have a sophisticated set of interpersonal skills. Clients of effective therapists feel understood, trust their therapist, and believe the therapist can help them. Effective therapists form working alliance with a broad range of clients and provide an acceptable and adaptive explanation for the client’s distress. They provide a treatment plan that is consistent with the explanation provided to the client. The therapist is influential, persuasive, and convincing and continually monitors client progress in an authentic way. Additionally, this therapist is flexible, adjusting therapy if resistance to the treatment is apparent or the client is not making adequate progress. Difficult material in therapy is not avoided but is used therapeutically, and the therapist communicates hope and optimism.
Effective therapists are aware of the client’s characteristics and context. They are aware of their personal psychological process and do not inject their own material into the therapy process unless such actions are deliberate and therapeutic. The effective therapist is also aware of the best research evidence related to the particular client in terms of treatment, problems, and social context and understands the biological, social, and psychological bases of the disorder or problem experienced by the patient. The effective therapist typically achieves expected or more than expected progress with his or her clients (Wampold, 2011). Finally, the effective therapist seeks to continually improve his or her skills and knowledge.
Attributes Needed for Success With Older Adults
Older Americans are not easily categorized. Their needs and preferences are varied and becoming more so. There are a number of personal attributes (Spar & LaRue, 1997) that practitioners should either amplify or adopt for success with older adults. Such attributes include the following:
Comfort with broad-based rather than narrowly focused interventions
Appreciation for the social factors in older people’s health and well-being
Remaining an activist in the face of degenerative or terminal disease
Patience for the time required and complexity encountered with seniors
Lack of embarrassment when confronted with one’s youth and inexperience
Comfort in collaboration with family and other providers (shared authority)
Focus on function, rehabilitation, and quality of life rather than on survival
Capacity to anticipate the older adult’s needs and advocate for care
Examining various causes of illness and disability
Appreciation for cultural as well as physiological diversity
Awareness of greater hetereogeneity among the aged (flexibility)
Willingness to physically interact (touch) and give concrete health advice
Capacity to tolerate dependency yet press for optimum autonomy
Ability to lead as well as follow in the person’s care and decisions
Ongoing commitment to clinical education
Additionally, it should be noted that older clients may not wish to speak with a counselor. Older clients may approach the helping professionally independently of others, they may be accompanied or coerced by family members to meet with a helping practitioner, or a crisis may require a referral by another concerned professional. Reluctance by resistant clients can be overcome by creating an atmosphere of trust, openness, and respect for the older client, while simultaneously conveying knowledge of the issues that he or she faces.
It is clear from the earlier discussions of aging issues that age-related problems exist and will continue to exist. The probability of increased physical and mental health or emotional issues may occur with major life transitions. These age-related problems need not be viewed as impediments to the helping relationship; they should instead be viewed as opportunities to learn strategies to circumvent the challenges. Older adults are capable of successful aging. They are resilient and are able to maintain an exceptional quality of life with increased health and engagement with others. However,
