Presented by ASA’s Mental Health and Aging Network (MHAN)

ASA Members: Register now for FREE

Not a Member? Join ASA or Register for this event for $49

Includes complimentary CEUs

This web seminar is based on the 2017 Aging in America Conference (AIA) workshop “Finding Gratitude and Meaning in Family Caregiving: Strength-Based Psychotherapy.”

While caring for aging parents is often portrayed as a physical, psychological and financial burden, a growing body of research suggests that caregivers can derive positive rewards from caregiving, including personal and spiritual growth, an enhanced sense of purpose and the gratification of serving the family well in a time of change and sometimes crisis. In fact, caregivers have the potential to get stronger as they gain the skills to provide care more effectively. This web seminar by Barry J. Jacobs and Julia L. Mayer—married psychologists and co-authors of AARP Meditations for Caregivers (Boston, MA: Da Capo; 2016)—will explore how aging network professionals can enable caregivers to experience the growth potential in their mission through clarifying purpose, teaching intentional practices such as mindfulness, and identifying and nurturing positive beliefs.

Participants in this web seminar will be able to:

• Review empirical evidence of negative and positive psychological and medical effects of family caregiving on family caregivers;
• Outline means of identifying caregivers’ sense of purpose through the “Honoring the Mission” intervention;
• List intentional practices—such as perspective-taking, mindfulness and prospective retrospection—for decreasing caregiver reactivity to caregiving duress; and,
• Identify three ways of promoting forgiveness when providing care to an aging parent.

Presenters:

Dr. Barry Jacobs is a clinical psychologist, family therapist and the director of Behavioral Sciences for the Crozer-Keystone Family Medicine Residency Program in Springfield, Penn. He is also the national spokesperson on family caregiving for the American Heart Association and a columnist on caregiving for AARP.org and the Huffington Post.

Dr. Julia Mayer is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Media, Penn., who specializes in helping women with life transitions.

*This web seminar is approved for AoTA contact hours in addition to CEUs approved for all ASA web seminars.