On completion of this course, the participant will be able to:
- Identify the major factors that affect the person in the evening of life both as an individual and as a member of a larger world;
- Employ an expanded vocabulary enabling one to think beyond stereotypes; opening the mind (and hopefully heart) to this new world of aging;
- Challenge the othering, usually unconscious, that can cut one off from oneself as well as others; and
- Describe some attributes of a whole-person paradigm for spirituality in the evening of life.
Section 1. Aging in the Big Wide World
- Demographics
- Economics
- Housing
- Healthcare
- Media
Section 2. Aging in the Personal, Private World
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Multiple Interfaces
- Communication Challenges
- Other Challenges
Section 3. Aging and Perception
- Language Shaping Perception
- What is Othering
- Othering in Society
- Othering in Self-Talk
- Othering and Stereotypes
- Challenging the Stereotypes
- Do you see what I see?
Section 4. Psychologies of Aging – Life Cycle Development Theories
- Jung
- The Eriksons
- Levinson
- Tornstam
- Others
Section 5. The Mind in the Evening of Life
- Changes in Cognition
- The Aging Brain
- Psychotherapies
- Tools for Self-knowledge
Section 6. Living Life Forward; Understanding It Backward (Kierkegaard)
- Life Review
- Memoir
- Autobiography
- Ancestry
Section 7. Spirituality – Why bother?
- What the Baltimore Catechism Got Right
- Health Benefits?
- Health Detriments?
Section 8. Faith Formation or Faith Exploration?
- Exploring in two dimensions- horizontal and/or vertical
- Spiritual? Religious? One? Both? Neither?
- Organized Religion and Individuals in the Evening of Life
Section 9. Why Survive?
- Carl Jung and Robert Butler in Dialogue
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Joan Erikson
- Others
