Adult Development Through Guided Autobiography: The Family Context

The aging of our society poses special concerns for families as members are faced with new roles and new forms of interdependency. Life review is a vital mechanism for educating families about shifting roles and increasing older adults' sense of self-efficacy. Family life educators can play an important role in helping families adapt to new demands and changing circumstances, as facilitators of the life review process. Guided Autobiography is a process developed specifically for this purpose. It incorporates the use of sensitizing questions, pretested themes, and the group process to encourage life review in an atmosphere of mutual support and fruitful reflection. The unprecedented increase of older adults in our society poses special concerns in the family context. Families are increasingly faced with new roles as caregivers. Older adults are living longer and are spending many healthy years in postretirement, but they may also face new roles in terms of increasing dependency and the need to develop ways to maintain productivity outside the workforce. Education can play an important role in helping families adapt to these demands and may serve as a resource in maintaining productivity and meaning in the later years. Life review is a vital mechanism for educating families about shifting roles throughout the life course and increasing older adults' sense of self-efficacy. This article explores the integrative process of life review through Guided Autobiography, with a special focus on the family context. The historical perspective on which an understanding of autobiography is predicated is presented, and the process and method of the Guided Autobiography are discussed. Some implications of Guided Autobiography for family life education are suggested. Historical Perspective and Conceptual Background