Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths, and Aging - Hardcover

Greenstein, Mindy; Holland, Jimmie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199360952 ISBN 13: 9780199360956

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2014

Synopsis

The fears of aging have been one long cascading domino effect through the years: twenty year-olds dread thirty; forty year-olds fear fifty; sixty fears seventy, and so it goes. And there is something to worry about, though it isn't what you'd expect: research shows that having a bad attitude toward aging when we're young is associated with poorer health when we're older.

These worries tend to peak in midlife; but in Lighter as We Go, Mindy Greenstein and Jimmie Holland show us that, contrary to common wisdom, our sense of well-being actually increases with our age--often even in the presence of illness or disability. For the first time, Greenstein and Holland--on a joint venture between an 85 year-old and a fifty year-old--explore positive psychology concepts of character strengths and virtues to unveil how and why, through the course of a lifetime, we learn who we are as we go. Drawing from the authors' own personal, intergenerational friendship, as well as a broad array of research from many different areas--including social psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, humanities, psychiatry, and gerontology--Lighter as We Go introduces compassion, justice, community, and culture to help calm our cascading fears of aging.

About this title

About the Author:

Mindy Greenstein, PhD, is Clinical Psychologist and Psycho-oncologist, Writer and National Speaker, and Consultant to the geriatric psychiatry group in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Jimmie Holland, MD, is Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, Attending Psychiatrist, and Founder of the geriatric psychiatry group at the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Medical School of Cornell University.

Review:

"Without being the least bit didactic, Drs. Holland and Greenstein have open-mindedly explored and discussed a societal topic that still remains sorely misunderstood, partly out of our universal fear of aging. This bold and liberating book should be on everyone's reading list, regardless of age." - The ASCO Post

"Lighter as We Go is succinct, nontechnical, funny and wise - but especially wise. It clearly ranks as one of the best books on ageing that even the most sophisticated student is likely ever to read."
--George E. Vaillant M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

"Lighter as We Go is a superbly informative and entertaining, tri-generational discussion about who we are as we age. It provides a 'lighthearted' (pun intended), yet not naïve description of getting older; what changes and what stays the same in our view of the world and of ourselves. This is a great read for the young and old alike."
--Harvey Jay Cohen, MD, Walter Kempner Professor of Medicine, Director, Center for the Study of Aging, Duke University Medical Center

"Mindy Greenstein and Jimmie Holland draw on ancient wisdom, current science, and their own personal experiences to dispel fears and misperceptions about growing old.  The reader is offered a gentler, more optimistic outlook that will comfort and even inspire all whose lives are touched by advanced aging  -- whether another's or their own."
--Susan Folkman, PhD, Professor of Medicine Emeritus, University of California, San Francisco

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0199360952
• ISBN 13: 9780199360956
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 306