For some decades the medical interview has been aimed not only
at establishing a diagnosis, but also at determining the patient’s state of health
and quality of life. In the field of geriatrics, conversation with the patient
intends yet to assess the extent of physical fitness and mental performance
impairment as well as to evaluate the risk factors which lead to a decrease in
mental capacity and also the patient’s so-called psychological resilience,
which determine the favorable course of aging. Researchers enumerate some kinds
of factors determining mental resilience, e.g. pride in one’s personality,
positive family relations, empowering relationships with professionals, the
so-called ‘power of giving’, a balanced view on life and so on. There are,
however, very few guidelines in geriatric literature on how to obtain this
‘balanced perception of one’s own life’. We do not find such tips either in the
papers of authors who write about assessing the so-called ‘trajectory of life’.
We have presented recently an attempt to formulate a method of
insight into the way we remember and even how we arrange the remembrance of own
biography. As we emphasized, one should pay attention not only to biographical
facts but also to important ‘psychological transformations’ concerning
decisions on one’s own further anticipated actions and behavior. An example
would be the decision that, “it is not worth striving for good grades in school
or even to get a formal education because prosperity in life depends on other
conditions” or for example, “that monogamy is not an advantageous pattern of
behavior”.
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