Counseling and Life-Span Development

Does a client's age affect the counselling process? What special challenges do older clients present for the counsellor? This book links life-span concepts directly to the daily concerns of counsellors. With the focus on major types of problems that bring clients to counselling, Thomas integrates current research with counselling techniques to enable counsellors to better understand the relationship between changes in personality traits and counselling elderly clients. He identifies key decisions that are typically made in the counselling process and determines what kinds of age-related information will positively influence the counselling process.

Does a client's age affect the counselling process? What special challenges do older clients present for the counsellor? This book links life-span concepts directly to the daily concerns of counsellors. With the focus on major types of problems that bring clients to counselling, Thomas integrates current research with counselling techniques to enable counsellors to better understand the relationship between changes in personality traits and counselling elderly clients. He identifies key decisions that are typically made in the counselling process and determines what kinds of age-related information will positively influence the counselling process.

R. Murray Thomas (Ph.D., Stanford University) is an emeritus professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where for three decades he taught educational psychology and directed the program in international education. He began his 50-year career in education as a high school teacher at Kamehameha Schools and Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu, then continued at the college level at San Francisco State University, the State University of New York (Brockport), and Pajajaran University in Indonesia before moving to Santa Barbara. His professional publications exceed 340, including 46 books for which he served as author, coauthor, or editor.