First Year Alone Beverly Gordon

First Year Alone Beverly Gordon

Seattle mental health counselor Lustbader here compells attention to and sympathy for those who ought to rely on caregivers for their needs. Stories are related by patients themselves. From incapacitated men and women we learn of the humiliations caused by the loss of autonomy, of the foilings at not being competent to manage on one’s own. Accounts from widely dissimilar sorts of persons who requires medical care and those who begrudgingly or willingly see to their care provide graphic lessons in sensitivity.

From Publishers WeeklySeattle mental health counselor Lustbader here compells attention to and sympathy for those who will have to rely on caregivers for their needs. She notes, “The longer an sickness or incapacity lasts, the harder it becomes for us to maintain faith in our helper’s good will,” adding, “most persons protest dependence and struggle to maintain a secure sense of identity by asking for as little as they can.” Although the author’s observations, as well as those from such diverse origins as Proust biographer George Painter and Arthur Kleinman, author of The Illness Narrative , integrate much of the text, these references interrupt the real story, which is affiliated by persons who requires medical care themselves. From incapacitated men and women we learn of the humiliations caused by the loss of autonomy, of the foilings at not being competent to manage on one’s own. Accounts from widely dissimilar sorts of persons who requires medical care and those who begrudgingly or willingly see to their care provide graphic lessons in sensitivity.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Most helpful customer reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Psychology as Literature
By valerie trueblood
If you are a reader who is old or sick, or you take care or someone who is, and you can’t find the book you need to keep you going, try to get your hands on this original and beautiful work. It may be shelved with “Psychology” or “Aging,” but it is a book of stories, filled with the music of many voices recalling what used to make life rich, and confiding what does so now. You’ll be surprised at the smallness of some of the things that bring satisfaction and joy to someone dependent on others for help, and you’ll recognize the suppressed impatience of the helper. This is a book that will give weary grown children taking care of ill or demanding parents some moments of genuine illumination. Without jargon and in a calm and almost classical prose, Wendy Lustbader has shown us the story in every life, and made us see ourselves in that chair, alone in a room, watching the door for someone who knows the story exists.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Counting on Kindness
By A
If you are caring for an elderly parent, or have siblings who are, this book will really help you see what it is like from the parent’s perspective. Your heart will open up to your parent when you realize how much harder it is to be dependent on your children as caregivers than to be the busy adult trying to sandwich in a few minutes for the parent. It shifted my whole perspective on what was happening with my mother and allowed me to be open to her and hear her in a way I never have before. I recommend this book both for the parent and the children who are in this situation.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Thought provoking for those in the helping profession
By A
Lustbader gives her readers food for thought. As a person in the helping profession I found her book to give insight and voice to the individual who relies on the help of others. This book is a must read for all folks who work with those who rely on the help and kindness of others.

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