Counselling older adults: Issues and awareness

Abstract This paper explores understanding and awareness among counsellors and counselling psychologists, of work with older people. The result of a piece of reasarch on this topic are presented. These tentatively confirm a relative lack of interest and insight into work with this age group and indicate that an age bias may exist among therapists. The reasons for this lack of awareness are explored and it is suggested that issue of the therapists' countertransference is crucial and that work with older persons may raise complex emotional issues for the counsellor. Possible future directions for research are discussed.