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Realizing Our Inner Elderchild

Toward the Possible Huxman

Department of Human Development, P 0. Box 1920, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN 37752.

Much is written today on the necessity for therapy and personal growth work to address the needs of the inner child. A large part of such work is self help and self directed. Yet little is mentioned about what part of the self guides such intense therapeutic effort. The vast majority of the psychology literature and therapy focuses on the first half of life and does not acknowledge or describe growth in the second half. The gerontology literature focuses on late life pathology or, at best, normal aging but largely does not consider exceptional aging/'agers." Two new constructs, the inner elder and the Elder Child, are introduced and proposed to introduce the discipline of transpersonal gerontology, to guide inner child work, to add to the understanding and practice of personal growth throughout the life span, to transform images and expectations of aging and of the later years, and to provide a model of the possible human.

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 34, No. 4, 78-100 (1994)
DOI: 10.1177/00221678940344007


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