Despite public images of families abandoning their oldest members, family contact and connection remain a central feature in the lives of older individuals. In the United States, families comprise the primary social support and caregiving system for older adults.1 In parallel fashion, older adults provide more care to adult children than they receive, until their very latest years, while also providing meaningful relationships to children, grandchildren, and later generations.2 Families are such important components of older adults' lives that they offer a powerful locus for intervention, as well as powerful support for individual interventions. This article offers a rationale for including families in therapy, an overview of core tenets of family therapy as applied to later life families, and a brief overview of the care-giving family therapy literature.
展开▼
