524: Working With Elders-Aging, Control, and Legacy

Working With Elders: Aging, Control, and Legacy Hosts:

Dr. David Burns

Kevin Cornelius, LMFT

Guests:

Dr. Jill Levitt

Thai-An Truong, LPC. LADC

Episode Overview What happens when aging begins to change the things that once gave us independence, identity, and a sense of purpose?

In this episode of The Feeling Good Podcast, Kevin Cornelius, Dr. David Burns, Jill Levitt, and Thai-An Truong explore the emotional challenges that can accompany aging—and the ways therapists, caregivers, family members, and loved ones can respond with greater empathy, dignity, and respect.

Thai-An draws on her experience working with older adults in an inpatient setting and introduces two fundamental needs that can become especially important in later life: control and legacy. As people age, they may experience layers of loss involving physical strength, health, friends, spouses, independence, financial security, familiar surroundings, and even their sense of identity. At the same time, family members and caregivers may become increasingly focused on getting things done, making decisions, and addressing practical or medical concerns.

That difference in agendas can create painful power struggles.

The episode explores a different approach: slowing down, reducing urgency, and giving older adults as much agency as possible. Rather than interpreting resistance or insistence on doing things a certain way as simply being "stubborn" or "difficult," the conversation considers whether these behaviors may reflect a deeply human need for control, safety, familiarity, and dignity.

The conversation then turns toward legacy and life review. Thai-An describes a process of listening for the stories, people, experiences, and themes that repeatedly emerge in an older person's conversations. Those stories can provide clues about the values that have mattered most throughout their life—and about how they would like to be remembered.