Crossroads at Midlife: Your Aging Parents, Your Emotions, and Your Self

by Frances Cohen Praver

Overview

With medical science, health care, and healthy lifestyles extending our lifespans as never before, more and more midlife adults are finding themselves caring for their aging parents. This role can trigger not only logistical and financial challenges, but also great emotional upheaval. There is a reversal of roles as the child—often in the midst of raising his or her own adolescent or young adult offspring—becomes the caretaker of the parent. A parent's aging and mortality elicits strong feelings of loss, and a stark realization of one's own aging and mortality. Past, present, and future paths converge, and the caretaker is at the center of that crossroads. Psychologist Praver—a specialist working with such caretakers—shows us their inner worlds, and how they used a difficult point in their lives to embark on a jourbaney of self-understanding and self-transformation—a jourbaney toward a more meaningful life for themselves.

Readers can gain a better understanding of their own lives— and know they are not alone in their struggles to contend with and find powerful benefits from the emotional side of caring for an aging parent. Distress can become peace of mind, as we see in the stories of men and women who sought Praver's help. Relationships that might be weakened by a caretaker role—relationships between caretakers and their children, spouses, and friends—can actually grow stronger with the experience. Profound issues affecting caretakers are shared in this evocative book, which is an enlightening and enjoyable read.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313363160
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/30/2008
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Frances Cohen Praver, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst working primarily with middle-aged people and couples caring for aging parents. She has appeared on television shows including Good Morning America and The Phil Donahue Show, and has lectured on trauma and traumatic stress in Grand Rounds at several hospitals.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
My Story
Getting Your House in Order
Role Reversal
Diverse Role Demands
Emotions Evoked
Dark Feelings in the Spotlight
Guilt, Guilt, and More Guilt
Caring for Yourself
Problems from the Past
Unfinished Family Business
The Burden Is on You
Long Distance Caring
Handle with Care
The Setting Sun

What People are Saying About This

Robert Reich

"Many of us will have to care for our aging parents while contending with the reality that we too are growing old. In [this] insightful book, Dr. Praver describes our personal and spiritual enlightenment as we reverse caretaking roles with our parents."

Gladys Guarton

"Interacting with our aging parents, and/or with our children as their aging parents, has become a quite universal life passage, still largely unexplored in the psychological literature. Dr. Praver's book discusses it from the point of view of contemporary psychoanalysis,…it would be a valuable companion to anyone navigating through the difficulties of aging within significant intergenerational relationships."

Julia A. Becker

"Dr. Praver delivers an informed and personal view of what psychology and psychiatry can offer…. Praver demystifies the process of psychotherapy and simplifies sychoanalysis, in a realistic unassuming manner for a lay public. Yet the same understandable chapters also deliver fertile, sophisticated insights for students and practicing clinicians in the field."

Bernie Siegel

"Read this book and learn how to save your life by living with the knowledge that your time is limited. It will help you to find your chocolate ice cream and live out your life consuming it."

Roberta Jellinek

"Dr. Praver informatively presents complex ideas about our interactions with people, and particularly our aging parents, without compromising the integrity of the theoretical concepts. Her many case examples are lively, evocative and her writing style is suitable to both a lay and professional audience."

Virginia F. Sendor

"By using gripping case histories to provide invaluable insights, Dr. Cohen Praver encourages the reader to move beyond the crossroads of stress and heightened trauma-and use one's 'gift of time' to embrace the road that is positive and life-affirming."

Yehuda Nir

"A highly sophisticated, insightful self-help book on how to deal with your aging parents and your aging self. It helps you to understand who you are."

Editorial Reviews

Unlike most other books on caring for an aging parent, this one emphasizes the opportunities for middle-aged caregivers to grow and change as they negotiate the demands of aging parents and, often at the same time, those of the increasingly independent adolescent and young adult children. . . . [I]nsightful. Public libraries will want to purchase it for the many baby boomers now facing these problems and seeking guidance.” —Library Jourbanal

“[A]n informative and insightful look at midlife. . . . With her emphasis on midlife as a time for personal enlightenment and growth, Praver encourages readers to embrace this phase of their lives.” —Booklist

“Crossroads at Midlife takes an honest unflinching look at the emotional upheaval that men and women confront at this critical juncture in their own lives . . . Dr.Frances Cohen Praver's inspirational message of embarking on a jourbaney of exploration and self-transformation in order to create the remaining years with meaning is based on her personal experience. . . . Powerful emotions and inner conflicts evoked by aging parents leave caretakers feeling torn. . . . The author shares therapy tools to help readers take control of inner states so that they can empathize with parents and themselves. Then they can better provide care with kindness and compassion.” —The Leader

From the Publisher

Unlike most other books on caring for an aging parent, this one emphasizes the opportunities for middle-aged caregivers to grow and change as they negotiate the demands of aging parents and, often at the same time, those of their increasingly independent adolescent and young adult children. Praver, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who works primarily with the middle aged, enlivens the text with anecdotes and examples drawn from her therapy practice. The dominant theme is the need for the middle-aged person to put "his own house in order" and care for and understand himself so that he can better care for his family members. Issues such as guilt, relationships with siblings, unfinished family business, and role reversal are all topics of discussion. Though lacking an effective structure, this book is still insightful. Public libraries will want to purchase it for the many baby boomers now facing these problems and seeking guidance.-Kay Brodie, Chesapeake Coll., Wye Mills, MD Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal