Aging and Spirituality

Aging and Spirituality
Author: David O. Moberg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2012-10-12
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1136388591

Explore the spiritual dimensions of aging through science, theory, and practice! During the later years of life, many people devote energy to a process of spiritual awakening and self-discovery. Yet their family, friends, clergy, and the helping professionals who work with them are not always prepared to understand or deal with the spiritual concerns of their clients. Aging and Spirituality provides a unique, far-reaching overview of this long-neglected field. Divided into four independent but interwoven sections, this landmark book covers the spiritual realm with scientific rigor and deep human understanding. Aging and Spirituality comprehensively surveys the issues of spirituality, from the groundwork of basic definitions to detailed assessments of the role spirituality plays in the lives of the elderly and suggested directions for further research. This book's unique approach combines scholarly research and practical nuts-and-bolts suggestions for service delivery. By drawing from many disciplines and professions, it offers fresh perspectives to even those practitioners already familiar with the most effective spiritual techniques their own field can offer. Aging and Spirituality answers such common questions as: What are the spiritual needs of people later in life? Is there any solid evidence that prayer changes things? How is spirituality related to physical and mental health? Does spirituality matter when people know they are dying? How can we measure spiritual wellness and assess the outcomes of activities intended to enhance it? Will attention to spirituality aggravate or alleviate the losses--of friends, family, health, youth--that so often occur during old age? Aging and Spirituality provides a much-needed resource for health care professionals, clergy, social workers, and counselors working with geriatric clients. By integrating spiritual issues into the theoretical framework of social gerontology, Aging and Spirituality will help you understand the scientific foundations, practical applications, and public policy implications of spirituality for older adults.

Aging as a Spiritual Practice

Aging as a Spiritual Practice
Author: Lewis Richmond
Publisher: Avery
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2012-12-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1592407471

Offers a Buddhist perspective on aging well, with anecdotes of the author's experiences with illness, aging, and transformation, and guided meditations.

Social Forces and Aging

Social Forces and Aging
Author: Robert C. Atchley
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Company
Total Pages: 552
Release: 1988
Genre: Medical
ISBN:

Spirituality and Ageing

Spirituality and Ageing
Author: Albert Jewell
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Total Pages: 194
Release: 1999
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781853026317

Spirituality and Ageing presents the experience of ageing as an opportunity for spiritual reflection and affirmation of life. The contributors are religious and spiritual leaders and ethical thinkers from a range of different backgrounds. They define 'spirituality' not just as a religious concept but as the fulfilment of the universal human need for purpose, values and relationships - a sense of wholeness in life. This spiritual dimension helps people face the emotional and psychological challenges of growing older, such as memory loss, dementia, bereavement and fear of death. Existing systems of social care often focus on the material and physical needs of older people; this collection proposes that the spiritual needs of older people are as vital a consideration for their welfare. Through their spirituality, older people can attain a fuller appreciation and understanding of life, which can also inform and enrich the lives of others.Spirituality and Ageing will be an invaluable resource to carers looking for a holistic and more reflective approach to work with older people.

Spirituality, Religion, and Aging

Spirituality, Religion, and Aging
Author: Holly Nelson-Becker
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 651
Release: 2017-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 148331524X

Spirituality, Religion, and Aging: Illuminations for Therapeutic Practice by Holly Nelson-Becker is a highly integrative book written for students, professionals in aging, ministers, and older adults themselves. Readers will gain the knowledge and skills they need to assess, engage, and address the spiritual and religious needs of older persons. Taking a fresh approach that breaks new ground in the field, the author discusses eight major world religions and covers values and ethics, theories, interventions, health and caregiving, depression and anxiety, dementia, and the end of life. Meditations and exercises throughout the book allow readers to expand and explore their personal understanding of spirituality. Referencing the latest research, the book includes assessments and skill-based tools designed to help practitioners enhance the mental health of older people.

Religion, Spirituality, and Aging

Religion, Spirituality, and Aging
Author: Harry R. Moody
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2005
Genre: Aging
ISBN: 0789024985

Book attempts to demonstrate how spirituality and religion can improve an older person's quality of life.

Spirituality and Aging

Spirituality and Aging
Author: Robert C. Atchley
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2009-03
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0801891191

Separating spirituality from religion--something few books on this topic do--Spirituality and Aging offers a plan for incorporating spirituality into gerontological scholarship, research, education, and practice.

Aging as a Spiritual Journey

Aging as a Spiritual Journey
Author: Eugene C. Bianchi
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2011-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725230062

Bianchi's wide-ranging book draws together insights from the social sciences, the humanities, and religion to establish a holistic framework for a spirituality of aging. He argues that middle life and late adulthood present opportunities for turning inward for a deeper contemplative life within the context of active, worldly endeavors. This can also augur a reform of social relationships--beyond individual development alone--toward the creation of a more cooperative, just society. In this way, physical decline is countered by a spiritual ascent. He summons aging persons, fortified with universal values and concerns gained from age and experience, to return to the centers of decision making. Throughout, the author ponders such questions as personal power, identity, fear, freedom, contemplation, sexuality, the church, faith, suffering, and hope. In candid interviews, older religious leaders reflect on their early value formation, personal traumas, choice of careers, midlife transitions, experiences of old age, and the prospect of death. In dwelling mainly on human spiritual dilemmas of the aging cycle, Bianchi offers a strong, clear message of hope--one that stands against the tide of our culture which tends to shunt older people to the outer eddies of life's stream. Aging as a Spiritual Journey is immensely valuable to all laypersons and those in the helping professions who are concerned about the quality of the aging process.

Childhood and Society

Childhood and Society
Author: Erik H. Erikson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 450
Release: 1993-09-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0393347389

The landmark work on the social significance of childhood. The original and vastly influential ideas of Erik H. Erikson underlie much of our understanding of human development. His insights into the interdependence of the individuals' growth and historical change, his now-famous concepts of identity, growth, and the life cycle, have changed the way we perceive ourselves and society. Widely read and cited, his works have won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Combining the insights of clinical psychoanalysis with a new approach to cultural anthropology, Childhood and Society deals with the relationships between childhood training and cultural accomplishment, analyzing the infantile and the mature, the modern and the archaic elements in human motivation. It was hailed upon its first publication as "a rare and living combination of European and American thought in the human sciences" (Margaret Mead, The American Scholar). Translated into numerous foreign languages, it has gone on to become a classic in the study of the social significance of childhood.