Conclusions: Counter-Transference Issues

Abstract

Some three years after taking up this work, each time I walked down the long central corridor of the hospital to one of the patient and staff meetings, I was still filled with dread. It didn’t get any easier. Yet it was drawn to my attention that in writing about this work I had rather taken for granted the experience and learning which helped me establish and sustain the work. I can see this may be a personal issue but I also think that I became identified with an aspect of my elderly patients: because of their physical and mental decline and current social attitudes towards the elderly, their experience and wisdom can be overlooked, though at the same time these personal resources enable elderly patients to endure what would otherwise be unendurable.