1. The Use of the Life Story Work for older people with and without cognitive impairment
Theoretical Basis of LSB Work
Claudia K Y Lai, RN, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Nursing
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
President, Pi Iota Chapter
Honor Society of Nursing Sigma Theta Tau International

2. Theoretical Frameworks for LSB Work
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development
Butler’s life review
Life course perspective

3. Erikson’s 8 Stages of Human Development
Task
Infancy
0-1
Trust vs Mistrust
Toddler
1-2
Autonomy (Independence) vs. Doubt (or Shame)
Early childhood
2-6
Initiative vs. Guilt
Elementary & middle school years
6-12
Competency (Industry) vs. inferiority
Adolescence
12-18
Identity vs. role confusion
Young adulthood
19-40
Intimacy vs. isolation
Middle adulthood
40-65
Generativity vs. stagnation
Late adulthood
65-death
Integrity vs. despair

4. Erikson’s Theory Contribution Critique
(Bender et al., 1999)
Less emphasis on instinctive drives, such as sexuality and aggression.
Greater emphasis on the influence of society and culture on a person.
The period of personality change is extend to the entire lifespan.
Critique
Burner (1990, cited in Rinnemark & Hagberg, 1997a)
The strong focus placed upon the laws of nature and objective events across the life span.
Developmental theories have difficulty in describing life histories in a way that enables predictions.

5. Not Just One Task (Peck, 1956, cited in Peachey, 1992)
Specific Tasks of Old Age:
Ego-differentiation versus work-role preoccupation
Body transcendence versus body preoccupation
Ego-transcendence versus ego-preoccupation

6. Butler’s (1963) Life Review
Butler argued that older people, toward the end of their lives, undertook a life review.
His idea fit neatly into Erikson’s work.
Erikson pointed out the task.
Butler pointed to the method.
(Bender et al., 1999)

7. Challenges to Butler’s Assumptions (Wallace, 1992)
Presumed relationship between chronological age and thought and talk about the past – Is psychological aging a well defined, naturally occurring process?
Alleged benefits for the elderly of reviewing the past

8. Reminiscence Work in the 80s (Bender et al., 1999)
When reminiscence groupwork came in in the 80s, workers would use the names of Erikson and Butler to give their work respectability.
Barbara Haight, an American Professor of Nursing, has been influential in separating life review from reminiscence.
Haight argued that while reminiscence is a communal, a sharing experience, life review is an individual process of examining one’s life in the presence of a therapist, therefore, each with different outcomes.

9. Life Span Development and the Life Course Perspective
Life span developmental psychology became generally accepted in the 1980s after systematic articulation during the 1970s.
The life span developmental approach has been defined as being “concerned with the description, explanation, and modification of developmental processes in the human life course from conception to death” (Baltes, Reese, & Lipsitt, 1980, p. 66, cited in VandenBos, 1998).

10. Life Course Perspective (Matras, 1990)
From the point of view of the individual, the life course is his or her biography viewed in terms of socially prescribed activity, events, processes, and duration.
Age grading is the assignment of social roles to given chronological ages.
Most societies have at least 3 age-grade distinctions: children, adults, and elderly.

11. Life Course Domains (Matras, 1990)
Domains are social role spheres or spheres of activity, attachment, participation, or membership in which individuals can be observed, or can report themselves, at any moment in time.
At any moment in time an individual either is or is not a student, is or is not married, is or is not employed.
So that at such a moment the individual is or is not in the schooling domain, is or is not the married persons domain, is or is not in the employment domain.
When the individual enters a domain by making some change – becoming a student, getting married, finding a joy – he or she undergoes a transition in the life course.

12. References
Butler, R. (1963). The life review: An interpretation of reminiscence. Psychiatry, 4, 1-18.
Erikson, E. H., (1978). Adulthood. New York: W. W. Norton.
Bender, M., Bauckham, P., & Norris, A. (1999). The therapeutic purposes of reminiscence. London, UK: Sage.
Rennemark, M. & Hagberg, B. (1997a). Sense of coherence among the elderly in relation to their perceived life history in an Eriksonian perspective. Aging and Mental Health, 1 (3),
Wallace, J. B. (1992). Reconsidering the life review: the social construction of talk about the past. Gerontologist, 32 (1),
Matras, J. (1990). Dependency, obligations, and entitlements: A new sociology of aging, the life course, and the elderly. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Peachey, N. H. (1992). Helping the elderly person resolve integrity versus despair. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 28 (2),