[Psychanalitic psychotherapy: practice and indications in the aged].
Use of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for the elderly remains an issue. Even though regular psychoanalysis cure is contraindicated for elderly patients in most cases, yet, face-to-face psychotherapies can prove useful. The methods used for psychoanalytic psychotherapy for elderly patients are different from those applicable to middle age patients. These methods take into account the mourning process experienced by the elderly patient in three spheres: loss of object, loss of function and loss of oneself. Indications concerning psychoanalytic psychotherapy for the elderly have to be carefully assessed and will be detailed throughout the paper.
Claudel
Bertrand
B
Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, Service de psychiatrie adulte, Paris. bclaudel@free.fr
D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D011572:Psychoanalysis