Life Review: A Spiritual Way for Older Adults

This paper presents an integrative model of life review as a readily accessible resource for the spiritual well-being of older adults. The model contains a sequence of three interdependent, developmental components. The first component examines the family context within which life review occurs and the pervasive influence of this context throughout the life cycle. The second component explains the role of designated groups or confidants in facilitating the sharing of memories, emotions, and self-assessment evoked in life review. The final component explores the ways in which this companionate life review elicits and affirms for older adults new, more gratifying images of God. A substantial body of investigation has elaborated upon the nature of life review and its contribution to mental health.1 Life review is a form of reminiscence concerned with the meaning that individuals attribute to their past behavior. Discerning this meaning is an evaluative process, eliciting a variety of emotions, in which persons assess their behavior in terms of the extent to which it conforms to deeply held values. In more profound experiences there can even be an assessment of the appropriateness of the values themselves as normative guidelines for personal behavior. Life review is a normal, integrative, and often spontaneous phenomenon that occurs throughout the life cycle. At each stage older adults have already drawn upon reminiscences for preceJames J. Magce is Associate Professor at the College of New Rochelle, New Ro-