You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Through the lenses of psychotherapy and history the author of this paper explores changing attitudes to ageing and death and the issues that emerge in the therapeutic relationship when the last stage of life is focal. She considers our fears of body-mind failure and becoming “obsolete” in a world in which the elderly are no longer revered and supported as they used to be in the past, and our collective defences in the face of our mortality. The article ends by exploring what supports transformation and the acquisition of integrity and wisdom and more specifically what psychotherapy can offer.