Vital involvement in old age

Includes index.. Responsibility Erik H. Erikson, Joan M. Erikson, Helen Q. Kivnick.

Part 1 - Ages and stages. 1 An introduction. 2 The origins of our project. 3 Life and times--our subjects' historical and geographical milieus. 4 State for stage: epigenesis. Part 2 - The voices of our informants. 1 Integrity and despair: wisdom. 2 Generativity and stagnation: care. 3 Intimacy and isolation: love. 4 Identity and identity confusion: fidelity. 5 Industry and inferiority: competence. 6 Initiative and guilt: purpose. 7 Autonomy and shame/doubt: will. 8 Trust and mistrust: hope. Part 3 - A life history: revisitation and reinvolvement. 1 The screenplay. 2 Isak's stanges. Part 4 - Old age in our society

'...Erikson's now famous concept of the life cycle delineates eight stages of psychological development through which each of us progresses. The last stage, old age, challenges the individual to rework the tensions and rebalance the resulting strengths of all the earlier stages in an attempt to establish an integrity of the self that, while drawing sustenance from the past, remains vitally involved in the present....the authors spent the last several years interviewing a largenumber of octogenarians on whom life history data had been collected for over a half-century. What emerges is a remarkably absorbing, detailed, and intimate portrait of the experience of old age....'

Hardcover