This Is Not All Your Life But The Pieces You Talked About Your Life: The Narrative Therapy With The Elderly

Abstract

The population of the elderly is increasing both in Turkey and the whole world day by day. The present situation highly necessitates to solve the problems of the elderly. According to narrative therapy, elderly individuals encountering many problems in terms of bio-psycho-social aspects transfer all these problems into their lives in the form of narratives. The personal narratives of elderly people often include the themes of "loss" and "lack". These negative perceptions originate from the physical-mental health problems which increase with the old age and the narratives given to the elderly by the socio-cultural context. Narrative therapy provides an opportunity for elderly individuals to create an alternative narration to help them change their life stories. In this way, elderly individuals become aware of their existing narratives and collaborate with the therapist to build alternative narrations that will improve their well-being rather than being stuck at their existing stories. In the current study, the contributions and applications of narrative therapy, which positively contributes to the individual's bio-psycho-social well-being, are discussed. The first section of the study includes the introduction which deals with the scientific and conceptual relationship between narrative therapy and the elderly. Following the introduction, the second section of the study focuses on the discussions about fundamental philosophy and targets of narrative therapy. The next section is about the detailed presentation of narrative therapy practice which was conducted with the elderly.

Keywords

• The elderly
• Narrative Therapy
• Postmodernism

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