In 'Psychology of Positive Aging' researcher, trainer and author Ellen Heuven links the individual life stories of twenty women around the globe with scientific insights from, among others, positive psychology. The book focuses not so much on how lives become easier or more comfortable with aging, but rather on the expanding set of life skills that helps women to deal with the challenges and joys of life. Positive aging does not mean achieving wealth, being in shape or flourishing in an inspiring marriage. While these conditions can certainly contribute to a sense of well-being in aging, the emphasis of this book is on inner qualities, talents, attitudes, and the art of living all of which can be developed and cultivated regardless of circumstances. While it is undeniable that certain physical functions start to decline from a certain age, both the life stories of the interviewees and scientific literature show that psychological functioning can become more robust into old age. The women in this book are inspiring role models who show how you can grow, live a fulfilling live and achieve goals, not so much DESPITE but WITH or THANKS to aging.

Presents the results of the MacArthur Foundation Study of Aging in America, which show how to maintain optimum physical and mental strength throughout later life.

Americans are unprepared for aging. The Power of Positive Aging is a training course to help you survive and thrive through the greatest challenge of your life--growing old. Americans now live longer than ever--a full 30 years longer than they did in the early 20th century. Our culture and personal expectations have not yet adapted to that change. These extra years can be a burden or an adventure, depending on your mental attitude. You can't fight the inevitable changes to your aging body, but author David Lereah says these changes are at worst inconveniences that won't prevent living a fulfilling life. Based on life lessons learned during Lereah's successful battle against cancer, The Power of Positive Aging gives readers a practical program of mental and spiritual exercises teaching mindfulness and acceptance, plus strategies for pursuing a balanced life and seeking and accepting social support. Based on timeless spiritual (but completely practical) principles, The Power of Positive Aging presents a concrete program of specific actions to put these principles into use in everyday life.

In recent decades, the North American public has pursued an inspirational vision of successful aging—striving through medical technique and individual effort to eradicate the declines, vulnerabilities, and dependencies previously commonly associated with old age. On the face of it, this bold new vision of successful, healthy, and active aging is highly appealing. But it also rests on a deep cultural discomfort with aging and being old. The contributors to Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession explore how the successful aging movement is playing out across five continents. Their chapters investigate a variety of people, including Catholic nuns in the United States; Hindu ashram dwellers; older American women seeking plastic surgery; aging African-American lesbians and gay men in the District of Columbia; Chicago home health care workers and their aging clients; Mexican men foregoing Viagra; dementia and Alzheimer sufferers in the United States and Brazil; and aging policies in Denmark, Poland, India, China, Japan, and Uganda. This book offers a fresh look at a major cultural and public health movement of our time, questioning what has become for many a taken-for-granted goal—aging in a way that almost denies aging itself.

Filled with practical and effective strategies, skill-building techniques, and advice based on the most recent research on the psychology of aging, Dr. Hill demonstrates how people can help themselves age productively and positively. A practical companion to Robert Hill’s Positive Aging: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, Seven Strategies for Positive Aging presents essential tactics that encourage the development of positive aging skills. In Positive Aging, Dr. Hill challenged traditional conceptions about aging and offered a new theoretical framework for understanding the nature of aging. He argued that “Positive Agers” can be found everywhere, and come from all walks of life. They find satisfaction in life regardless of their personal circumstances. By adopting affirmative lifestyle choices and positive spirituality, they are able to age well. In his new book, Robert Hill explains how anyone can adopt and develop positive aging skills. Dr. Hill has drawn upon the theoretical perspective first presented in Positive Aging to develop practical exercises and techniques that are easily accessible to the reader interested in discovering how best to adapt to the aging process. The reader will discover meaning through lifespan learning, learn how to transform age-related decline, and find out how to employ the principles of continuity in order to feel good about oneself, even during challenging times. The reader will also learn how to apply “meaning-centered” techniques of belonging, altruism, gratitude, and forgiveness in his or her own life, in order to enhance emotional health. These techniques are organized into seven distinct chapters: Learning, Meaning, Wisdom, Belonging, Helping, Gratitude, and Forgiveness.

Discover the diverse ways aging women attempt to deal with the universal challenges of loss, sickness, and death along with the problems of being old women in a society that values women mainly as sexual partners or producers of children. Faces of Women and Aging--a collection written by women, a number of whom are themselves older women who bring their unique life experiences and personalities to the topic.

Women and Positive Aging: An International Perspective presents the noted research in the fields of psychology, gerontology, and gender studies, reflecting the increasingly popular and pervasive positive aging issues of women in today's society from different cohorts, backgrounds, and life situations. Each section describes a bridge between the theoretical aspects and practical applications of the theory that is consistent with the scientist-practitioner training model in psychology, including case studies and associated intervention strategies with older women in each chapter. In addition to incorporating current research on aging women's issues, each section provides the reader with background about the topic to give context and perspective. - Examines a comprehensive range of issues for aging women - Details current research trends - Encompasses a holistic model of women's aging - Ranges from physical and mental health in response to aging changes, to social relationships and sexuality - Presents a "how to put research into practice" section in each chapter - Focuses on topical issues that are relevant to women wanting to optimize their life outcomes as they live, on average, longer than ever before