Reminiscence and Life Story Work

This handbook is extremely full, informing and inspiring with detailed and helpful ideas to give reminiscence work depth and seriousness. It is aimed at a variety of professionals and volunteers, to support people of all ages, including family, friends and other staff... I have come away from reading this book having much deeper respect for reminiscence work, and wishing I had this book to hand all those years ago.

Now updated and in its fourth edition, this is the standard and comprehensive volume on reminiscence by the leading authority on the subject. It is, perhaps, more suited to the specialist reminiscence worker (paid or unpaid). Nevertheless reminiscence plays such an important part in all sorts of care work that the manager or someone leading on integrating the use of memory and life-stories in the whole work of a care home would find this book very helpful. A feature of the new edition is the inclusion of reminiscence for all ages, even children.

This book would prove to be an invaluable tool to anyone involved in reminiscence work, from paid carers or family members to trained professionals... There is a natural flow to the chapters, making it easy to follow, and each chapter takes you through specific learning outcomes, key points and application exercises along with well-referenced further reading topics. I found there was a strong focus on the benefits of reminiscence work, looking at different client groups and group dynamics and working with couples and clients from different cultural backgrounds. One of the key issues for me was the need to pre-plan sessions, not to carry them out ad hoc, and to vector into the plan any expected outcomes; however, if the opportunity does arise then an unprompted spontaneous session must be seized "as the moment may not come again". The chapters are very diverse, covering reminiscence work with many client groups including people who are depressed, those with learning disabilities and people with sensory impairments. One of the areas covered that I found particularly interesting was carrying out reminiscence work with people who are coming to the end of their life and those recently bereaved, and how this helps to celebrate their life and also helps to deal with the loss and grief process. Finally the instructions relating to staff training and the forms provided to document sessions will prove invaluable to anyone with supervisory responsibility for staff teams currently or wanting to engage in any form of reminiscence work.