Managing the Ageing Experience: Learning from Older People

249 Pages·2010·5.629 MB·English

by  Denise Tanner

DENISE TANNER
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Managing the Ageing
Experience

Learning from older people
Managing the ageing
experience
Learning from older people
Denise Tanner
This edition published in Great Britain in 2010 by
The Policy Press
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© The Policy Press 2010
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A catalog record for this book has been requested.
ISBN 978 1 86134 885 2 paperback
ISBN 978 1 86134 886 9 hardcover
The right of Denise Tanner to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her
in accordance with the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.
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contents
List of figures iv
Notes on the author v
Acknowledgements vi
Foreword by Judith Phillips vii
Introduction 1
one Starting from lives 5
two Setting the scene 27
three ‘Keeping going’ 55
four ‘Staying me’ 83
five ‘The slippery slope’ 117
six ‘Sustaining the self’ 155
seven Destinations and directions 187
References 211
Index 233

iii
Managing the ageing experience
List of figures
2.1 Age group of study participants 42
2.2 The process of data construction 44
6.1 Summary of themes, categories and sub-categories 156
6.2 Processes of sustaining the self 157
6.3 Applications of the ‘sustaining the self’ model 161
6.4 Objective and subjective dimensions of coping 163

iv
notes on the author
Denise Tanner is a lecturer in social work at the University of Birmingham.
She is a registered social worker and has extensive practice experience in social
work with adults as well as many years’ experience as a lecturer and researcher.
She has a particular interest in service user and carer involvement in social work
education and research.

v
Managing the ageing experience
acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the willingness of the older
people, whose stories form the central thread of the book, to take part in the
research. I am immensely grateful to them for welcoming me into their homes,
giving their time generously and opening their lives to me with such warmth,
humour and fortitude.
Other people who have helped in various ways and at different times include
Joan Forbes, Barbara Walters, Paul Bywaters and John Harris.
My thanks to Judith Phillips and staff at The Policy Press for their patience,
understanding and support during the writing and production period.
Finally, my love and thanks to Jessica, Charlotte and Eleanor, for sustaining me
through difficult times.

vi
Foreword
Judith Phillips
Managing the ageing experience analyses the strategies used by older people to
manage the changes that accompanying ageing. The book is well grounded in
the experiences of older people themselves, and provides us with the views of
12 older people and their practical strategies for managing change as well as the
wider context of gerontological social work and social care. Taking a lifecourse
perspective it connects current processes with values, goals and past experiences
of dealing with loss and change. Themes discussed in the book illustrate the
resilience, creativity and resourcefulness of older people in their attempts to sustain
themselves and to engage in the social environment.
The themes within the book address theoretical frameworks for making sense
of change as well as providing the voices of older people to illustrate the key
issues. Students, academics, professionals and policy makers will find this text of
particular value with its synthesis of current research and fresh analytical lens on
how older people develop strategies for change.

vii

introduction
The way people perceive their lives is of vital importance, not only as a
means of exploring the aging process but also as a guideline for social
policy and the delivery of care in an aging society … an understanding
of the phenomenon of growing older can only be fully shaped through
an investigation of personal meanings of aging, which are expressed
in metaphors, images and life stories. (Ruth and Kenyon, 1996, p 2)
The central aim of this book is to learn from the ways in which older people
manage the experience of ageing. An overview of research projects commissioned
by older people as part of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Older People’s
Research Programme between 2000-04 highlighted the need for policy and
practice to start with an understanding of older people’s lives, in all their richness
and diversity, and then, based on that understanding, to consider how services can
support older people to live the lives they choose (Older People’s Steering Group,
2004). This reflects the ethos of this book, which aims to develop understanding
of older people’s lives, as illuminated by research based on their experiences and
perceptions, and to consider what this means for the development of services and
strategies to support their well-being.
As argued by Ruth and Kenyon (1996), understanding of the process of
managing ageing can only be acquired through uncovering the experiences of
older people and the meanings they give to these experiences. Central to this
book are the experiences and perspectives of 12 older people who participated
in a three-year research study (2000 to 2003). The study explored how the older
people managed difficulties for which they had been refused help by social services
on the grounds that their needs did not meet eligibility criteria. In order to keep
the research anchored as closely as possible to older people’s experiences, the
research used approaches that sought to promote the active involvement of older
people as research participants. Although the older participants have not been
directly involved in writing the book, it is hoped that its content and messages
are firmly rooted in their understandings and experiences. Direct quotations from
their interviews feature prominently in an effort to project their own voices as
far as possible.
In addition to exploring what can be learned from close attention to the
experiences of these 12 older people as they endeavoured to manage the ageing
experience, this book also seeks to connect these experiences to wider research
about older people’s needs, preferences and experiences, to themes and debates
in gerontological theory and to recent and current developments in social policy
and practice.

It is apparent through this process that older people’s understandings are not
simply isolated, individual phenomena; rather, they are negotiated within a social
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