Does therapy change when working with older clients?
Drawing upon life span developmental psychology, social gerontology, and clinical experience I have developed a transtheoretical framework for thinking about what changes are needed in psychological interventions with older adults: the contextual, cohort-based, maturity, specific challenge model (CCMSC; Knight, 1996). CCMSC is not a specific therapy system but a framework for thinking about the adaptation of any therapy system to work with older adults. In the model, context means that changes in therapy are often related to the social-environmental context of older adults both in the community and more especially within hospital and nursing home settings, rather than to their developmental stage. Cohort differences are based on maturing in a specific historical time period, leading to a focus on generational groups such as Depression-era generation, GI Generation, Baby Boomers, rather than on age groups. Developmental maturation leads to relatively minor changes, such as slowing down and the use of simpler language, but also to greater emotional complexity and a wealth of life experience upon which to draw. Specific challenges means that due to the high prevalence of chronic medical problems and neurological disorders, a higher percentage of psychological assessment and therapy is related to medical problems these problems. There is also a higher frequency of grief work and of attention to caregiving issues.
In short, the answer to the question of whether psychotherapy needs to be adapted for work with older adults is, Yes, but (mostly) NOT because they are older. That is, the major reasons for changing therapy when working with an older client are not due to developmental differences but to context effects, cohort effects, and specific challenges common in later life. Context effects require changes for older clients living in age specific contexts such as retirement communities and long term care settings as well as for clients who are seen in de facto age contexts such as hospitals and outpatient medical settings. Cohort effects require modifications because earlier born cohorts have different skills, different values, and different life experiences than later born cohorts. The specific challenges of later life require specific knowledge and therapeutic skills because of the problems they pose for clients, not because of the client's age.
How specialized does a therapist need to be to work with older adults? It will likely depend on the number and type of older adults seen in the practice. Therapists who see a small percentage of older adults, who see older adults who are physically healthy and not likely to have dementia, and whose older clients have problems similar to those of their younger clients, are not likely to need specialized training or education to work with older clients.
Adapting to work with members of other cohorts is similar in difficulty and in the type of changes required to working with clients of a different gender, ethnicity, class background, or occupation-based lifestyle. It does require sensitivity to the possibility of the difference. It also requires some knowledge of history before one was born or at least the willingness to learn that history from clients.
In terms of context effects, if the work with older adults is primarily in long term care settings or in acute medical settings, the work will be specialized compared to work with healthy younger adults living and working in the community. The differences are due to the specialized environmental context rather than to the age of the clients. It is likely to be somewhat similar to working with younger adults in medical care settings and rehabilitations settings. Learning these settings is likely to require some supervised experience working in them.