Group Support: Gestalt therapy teaches older people to become more clear-minded and less hostile, Kevin O'Sullivan reports
Group counselling benefits older people, enabling them to be more clear-minded, less hostile, more agreeable and ready to express anger, according to a study carried out by researchers at UCC and Stanford University in the US.
The study centred on older adults living in a community setting in Cork city.
The finding is particularly important as anger has been shown repeatedly to be predictive of ill-health, but especially so in cardiac disease.
"The difficulty with anger," according to Prof Eleanor O'Leary of the Department of Applied Psychology, UCC, "is that, if it is not expressed, it can harden into an attitude of hostility which becomes a more enduring feature of the personality".
Gestalt group therapy, which Prof O'Leary uses, assists people to express their angry feelings, thereby dissipating these feelings and allowing a more healthy relationship with themselves and others to be established.
An intervention such as that used in this study, which assists older adults to be more clear-minded, could be of particular value for those at the pre-onset stage of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, she adds.
At the end of the group counselling, Prof O'Leary notes, "members said they felt calmer and more relaxed, found it easier to express themselves, were more organised and more objective and were setting realistic goals".
Participants were full of ideas, more positive, upbeat, confident, tolerant, less self-centred and made a better effort to understand the point of view of others.
However, such results were obtained when trained and experienced gestalt therapists were used as facilitators. Such personnel were essential, she says.
The Cork Older Adult Intervention Project was carried out by Prof O'Leary with Ger Sheedy, of Killarney Counselling, Kathleen O'Sullivan of UCC Department of Statistics and Prof Carl Thoresen of Stanford University.
The work was based on a developmental model of the person in which the emotional, social and spiritual growth of older adults is viewed as continuing until death.
"The research aims to establish the best and most cost- effective practice for assisting older adults with their current problems," says Prof O'Leary.
"By comparison to group counselling, one-to-one assistance is labour intensive and is needed only by a minority," she said.
The group sessions usually last for six weeks, are of 90 minutes duration and are led by a trained gestalt therapist.
Older people often suffer from anxiety, loneliness, insomnia and depression.
Research shows that group counselling is highly effective in treating these problems.
Older adults themselves have rated group counselling as more positive and more acceptable than drug treatment.
Such group counselling allowed the older adults in the UCC study to form new friends at a stage in life when old friends were dying and family members were often preoccupied with their own lives.
Being part of a group raised their awareness of themselves and others, the kind of outcome associated with group counselling. They realised 'we all need each other'.
"Such interaction is regarded as especially important for older people who live alone, have no work-mates and no other ways of meeting new people," Prof O'Leary adds.
What the older adults liked was discussing their issues in group, listening to others, giving honest opinions and talking about feelings.
Many were surprised that they related so well to strangers and described the group counselling as stimulating and enjoyable and something they would like to do again.
The research is against the backdrop of a collapse of many networks of support and involvement for older people in Ireland which has resulted in a reduced sense of power and belonging and greater isolation.
Spontaneous social get-togethers in the evening time which took diverse and varied forms have been lost with the advent of technology.
In their research in nursing homes, Prof O'Leary and Nicola Barry have developed an integrative approach, which they call gestalt reminiscence therapy.
Through storytelling, unfinished business in the lives of older adults is identified.
UCC has introduced the Republic's first masters course in gerontology (study of older adults) in the Republic.
The MA takes a holistic approach to older people and aims to provide a knowledge of older adult studies through developing a critical appraisal of the various models and approaches to ageing.
The programme seeks to promote an understanding of old age and it examines the psychological, social, educational, health and caring aspects of the ageing process.