Differences in Psychologists' Ratings of Older and Younger Clients

Counseling to Promote Retirement Adjustment

“…Likewise, despite reports of a desire for retirement planning programs (Fillenbaum, 1971;Glamser, 19811, only a small minority is actually participating in such programming (Kragie, Gerstein, & Lichtman, 1989). Older adults underuse mental health services for a variety of reasons, such as inability to pay for services, lack of transportation, lack of knowledge about services available (Woodruff, Donnan, & Halpin, 19881, fear of being labeled, and biased attitudes about the aged on the part of mental health care providers (Ray et al, 1987). With respect to retirement counseling in particular, an additional factor may be in play.…”

Interactions of nurses with elderly patients: relationship to nurses’ attitudes and to formal activity periods

“…One approach is to establish formal penods, for example reality orientation sessions (Holden & Woods 1982), in which nurses' activity is systematically changed from the ward routine This is based on the argument that nurses' behaviour is under the control of environmental contingencies which are normally geared to physical care and hospital routine (Woods & Cullen 1983) An activity penod in which interaction is explicitly promoted and monitored might therefore reverse tbe effect of tbese contingencies Although such procedures, in particular reality onentation, may directly benefit patients, early indications that they might also improve staff attitudes or behaviour (Smith & Barker 1972) have been neglected Nevertheless, there is circumstantial support for the ability of structured programmes to improve staff-patient interaction (Hodges et al 1986) As a preliminary test of tbis view, it would be necessary to find out whether a sample of nurses interacted witb patients more positively dunng a programmed period of this sort than at other times An alternative approach is based on the argument that deficiencies in nurses' interactions with patients reflect the negative attitudes to and stereotypes of elderly people which have been widely reported m nurses (Hatton 1977, Kahana & Coe 1969) (see Chandler et al 1986 and other professionals (Greene et al 1987, Ray et al 1987 If this IS correct, interaction should be improved by changing attitudes (or preventing good attitudes from declining) or selecting staff witb appropnate attitudes Unfortunately there is, as yet, little information as to whether attitudes to nursing the elderly are related to behaviour with elderly patients Since, in nursing care as in other aspects of behaviour, attitudes have been found to be a poor guide to behaviour (Sanson-Fisher & Poole 1980), concordance should not be assumed…”

Ageism in Mental Health Assessment and Treatment of Older Adults

“…Older persons were described by the psychologists as being rigid, as having difficulties in learning new material, and as lacking the required energy and resilience for therapeutic growth. Two other studies eliciting assessments of standardized case vignettes from 179 psychiatrists (Ford and Sbordone 1980), and from 407 licensed clinical psychologists in the U.S.A (Ray et al 1987) found that older patients consistently received less favorable prognoses than their younger counterparts and were perceived as less ideal for therapy. Moreover, in Israel, 55% of a sample of clinical psychologists indicated their reluctance to work with older patients (Shmotkin et al 1992), and in Great Britain, psychiatrists were less likely to recommend psychotherapy for sexual dysfunction to an older patient compared with a younger patient (Bouman and Arcelus 2001; see Gewirtz-Meydan and colleagues in this volume).…”