Review of Creative old age

Abstract

Reviews the books, Creative old age by Clare DeGruchy (1946); and Aging successfully by George Lawton (1946). Creative Old Age is the last in a trilogy of books on old age counseling. Dr. Lillien J. Martin, alert at 91, dying in 1943, began her old age counseling in 1921. After nine years she published Salvaging Old Age in 1930, which was superseded by Sweeping the Cobwebs in 1933, the basic book on the Martin method in old age counseling. After Dr. Martin's death her long-time associate and assistant, Mrs. DeGruchy, brought out the second book in the trilogy, A Handbook for Old Age Counselors , 1944, which outlines more clearly for counselors the five counseling sessions usual in the Martin technique. In Creative Old Age , Mrs. DeGruchy has preferred to give in artistic short-story form a dozen case histories, plus an account of two group projects. Aging Successfully is a book on maturing and later maturity rather than an old age as such. It is a book on how to prevent old age rather than on how to cure old age. While both these books are on psychology each hints that the base problem of old age is even more sociological and economic. Hence, both these books in a way are books on vocational counseling for later maturity and old age in a battle against an industrial society which, unlike an agricultural or socialized society, no longer has three-generation homes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)