The Life Course Approach

This learning object will enable you to:

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the life course approach to ageing and its relevance to mental health in later life
  • Understand the significance to mental health in later life of approaches which give primacy to meaning and identity: life stories; the biographical approach; and reminiscence.

Estimated time required

40-50 mins.

Instructions

In this learning object you are introduced to the importance of seeing later life as one phase of an entire course of life from birth to death shaped by earlier life stages and experiences.

Meaning and identity are important to mental health in later life and require that we can connect past, present and future in our lives. A highly influential theory of the life course which embodies these themes is the psychosocial theory of Erik Erikson, which you will consider in Section 2.

A life course approach suggests that in order to understand and work effectively with older people we need to see them in the context of their past lives, taking a life story or biographical approach, or through reminiscence. You will consider these approaches in Section 4.

Navigation

We recommend that you work through the introduction, the four main sections and the conclusion in the order that they are presented. To move around use the buttons at the bottom of each screen.

References and self-assessment

When you have worked through the main sections you can:

  • visit the ‘References’ section where you can access extra materials that were references throughout and may provide useful opportunities for further reading/research. There is also a printable version of the reference list on this screen
  • visit the ‘Self-assessment’ section and test how far you have assimilated the key messages from this learning object