There's a relatively new field in the social sciences called gerontology. It studies old age life styles and the impact old age people have upon the social system. I'm nearly 73, so I know about old age problems and lifestyles from my own experience. Additionally, I took several courses on lifelong learning opportunities for the elderly at the University of Chicago under Professor Griffith, who later went to Canada to a university up there. We used gerontology studies as a backdrop to designing adult learning situations.
The point I wish to make here is that social love in old age is encountered in the process of one's dissociating himself from the mainstream milieu. It is that aspect of dissociation involving making substitutions for the partnerships and relationships that were how the individual met his basic needs in his active life with those typically reserved for the elderly.
Reference books in this area, i.e., the topic of old age, usually are written by MDs; and I would say as a rule, MDs know little about the social aspects of persons in mental and physical decline. Most of the books I've read, in fact, attempt to glorify old age as a period or phase of tremendous opportunity and further growth of one's potential, admitting as well it has moments of human agony. In any case, everybody who is interested in the topic admits it's a period a human being should expect to undergo in his final years of life.
The Disassociating Process
So, let's see what really goes on during one's old age:
--retirement from work, gainful employment. Dissociating self from a sustaining livelihood.
--relocating to a retirement community as the primary residence; sometimes, entering an assisted living facility (on a referral basis); sometimes, going to a convalescent home or some other home designated for the elderly
--coming to rely upon a senior center for one's knowledge of resources and services available to him as a senior. The senior centers, usually run by the county, provide lunch, and offer a place to make friends with other seniors by participating in the social programs of playing games, dancing, attending seminars. They also serve as a nexus for food distribution of regional food banks. Finally, they give legal referrals and offer social services, e.g., case management. As I will point out below, these centers are developing a new position I call an Elderly Advocate, whose training is in social work, and by becoming a client, the senior increases his knowledge of options available in housing, medical, dental, Medicare insurance, etc. Many of these centers also provide opportunities for exercising, e.g., a class in yoga. Indeed, these centers should be frequently visited by all seniors!
--attend a senior day care center where social workers provide supervision and direction. Provide transportation via a van to this center. Usually a senior is recommended to join the group when otherwise he would be alone in his house the day long.
--for education, attending classes and seminars at lifelong learning centers attached to universities and community colleges
--come to rely upon public transportation. The county government usually offers a coupon program that enables seniors to ride a taxi at a reduced rate. In addition to bus transportation, the county may offer van service between various senior residences and the local senior center. It is sad, to my mind, that some seniors continue to drive a car into their late 70's and in their 80's!
--keeping in touch with one's old friends of his active days and making himself available to attend their funerals!
As one becomes old, he comes to utter frequent pleas for help. Within the familial bounds, some close relative is appointed to receive and respond to these. The family doctor may designate some nurse to listen in matters medical. If the family doctor receives too many complaints from a particular old person, the MD may refer him to a specialist, who charges much more for services of succor. Eventually, the elderly is entrusted to a home nurse or practitioner who may assume some of the house chores. Withal, the aging senior is becoming increasingly isolated, for no one wants to listen to a constant complainer! Indeed, those professionals he comes into contact with may finally throw up their hands and tell him to "get with it!" At this juncture, the elderly's disassociation is complete!
What is the senior's typical reaction to his own disassociation? In an important book on aging Aging Well (2002). author George Vaillant summarizes from the Harvard Studies on the topic what they observed: the aging adult becomes increasingly blaze, distant; displaying an "aloof" attitude toward what is happening in the world (even in the world of family, wherein kids are being raised). It may seem to others that this old man or woman has has reached the pinnacle of wisdom, taking all things in stride, but in reality, he is in the throes of withdrawal from involvement in everyday activities, where decisions about kids and money are being made by others.
Still more observations about old age maturing coming out the Harvard studies: the senior becomes warm, arousing in those he loves an endearing predisposition, e.g., as in a child's loving statement, "Oh, Grandpa, it's so nice of you to like my playing the piano!" He also displays greater self-confidence, if not being able to show greater self-reliance. That is to say, he increasingly stays within himself, finding greater satisfaction in himself than in what others say and think of him.
The Insinuation of a Social Worker as an Elderly Advocate
Everybody needs housing. But the options for senior housing are specifically delineated. Moreover, the availability of any particular kind of housing or of housing in a particular location is very tight. Some social worker designated an Elderly Advocate, e.g., in a Senior Center or Social Service Agency is to help seniors get into the housing situation suitable for them. Seniors have other needs specifically related to their age and capacities; and the Elderly Advocate is the one who should work with them to meet these.
The Advocate should meet with each elderly client at least once a month. Trained to observe changes in the elderly mental and physical condition, the Advocate also functions as a monitor to determine whether the elderly individual is functioning so as to meet his basic needs on his own. The Advocate makes recommendations when he discerns the individual is "losing it," so to speak.
It is essential that a senior find a Social Worker as Advocate with whom he can bind (i.e., enter the condition of Social Love). The Advocate is to work on behalf of his senior clients such that the basic needs of the several clients are being met; and each client should evaluate the Advocate's pereformance on his behalf.
The Impact of the Advocate's Insinuation
You can see that the Advocate's role is vital in terms of protecting the interests of the elderly. It should prevent elderly abuse wherever it occurs, not simply in the circumstance described in the play One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest!
More important, the Advocate should have a say in designing services for the senior population. Indeed, if the position becomes widespread and competently filled, the elderly will be truly blest!
Using an Elderly Advocate
As I say, I'm an elderly adult, nearly 73. Over the past 10 years or more, I've used several Social Workers in the capacity of Elderly Advocate. Usually, I've found one in a Senior Center's Social Services Department, but also, the Lutheran Social Services Agency in Washington, DC and in Omaha has been a reliable source. I haven't found the Salvation Army providing adequate services in the capacity of Elderly Advocate, however. Well, that's been my experience.
The Advocates I've used do best at laying out options. They also do very well at giving me feedback on how I'm functioning mentally and physically. Outstanding was the Advocate I had in LA at Saint Bonaventure's Senior Center. He went through with me the pros and cons of leaving LA for Reno; and offered that should I need to live in an assisted living situation he'd get me in pronto!
Occasionally, I've had a Social Worker as Advocate who thinks she should "rat on me" for the good of society--as she envisions it! Like a young child, she watches my every move and gesture and carefully probes what I meant by what I said, looking to find some sign of mental or physical deterioration! Needless to say, I quickly drop her and seek the services of another. For, when all is said and done, I think their help on behalf of the old is invaluable!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
SL among adults: "Hiya', will you be my Par'd'ner?"
If you have read my blog topic on marriage in the Social Contract series (see http://joastler.blogspot.com/), you may have discerned that the approach I took involved a benefit-obligation analysis that answered the question, Why be married? It did not specifically refer to the needs of the individual that could motivate his entering a 'lasting' relationship. Yet, in taking up the issue of how social love is omni-present in interrelationships, a discussion of how need fulfillment is a driving force to bind people together is essential.
Let's start with the obvious, so we're of one mind in this. A married woman is unable to engage in sexual activity--for one reason or another. Her husband has certain choices to make to enable him to attain sexual release and sexual gratification: masturbation, go to a prostitute, find a congenial partner at work, in his neighborhood, even at church! A "partner" is identified as someone who is willing to help the individual meet his personal need for the purpose of achieving the latter's psychological gratification. Usually, the partner shares the same value system as the requestor, i.e., the person in need (sometimes called the "protagonist"), such that the former is sympathetic and understanding of what the latter is experiencing in his state of need.
If the requestor for help from a partner has anti-social needs driving him, society may be inclined to incarcerate the requestor for the sake of a greater good. Accordingly, persons who have anti-social needs and plan to act upon them should be referred to a psychotherapist or medical doctor for treatment, e.g., as in cases of desiring to rape, to take drugs, even to kill; before they pursue the ends they have in mind.
The importance of the approach here is in my belief that social love occurs between an individual and his partner in each's participation in an event which is to achieve the end, ever in view of each, viz., the requestor's specific need satisfaction. My approach circumvents discussion of some moralists who question the experiential means the requestor asks his potential partner engage in. For example, some Catholics don't want their priests asking anyone to participate in a sexual act for the purpose of his own gratification. To me, the matter of how the requestor thinks he will reach need fulfillment is his okay choice, providing both the need and the way to achieve it are socially acceptable, quite independent of some moralist's dicta.
One may wonder, what the potential partner expects to get out of his participation in an experience aimed at meeting the requestor's needs. Who knows? Obviously, the requestor is concerned about his own need-fulfillment, even should the partner he chooses is to receive no benefit other than the acknowledgement as participant in a drama with ends-in-view, as if being included in the cast of characters of a play.
Importantly, the partner can "opt out" of the (intended) need-fulfillment experience simply by declaring lack of interest in the requestor's personal goals and objectives or even in the particular role that he assented to play. Contrast the ease of "opting out" with dissolving a contract. In divorcing her husband for instance, a woman cannot simply give as a reason that she no longer needs her husband and expect the divorce to be granted. She should refer to the benefits and obligations that govern the contract.
Some "means" the requestor poses may appear shocking to society. A married businessman who chooses an young, attractive escort to accompany him to business functions rather than his secretary or his wife will get his employees' tongues wagging, to be sure, but maybe not those of the businessmen he is desirous to impress!
The Psychological Theory of Basic Needs
A person's behavioral goals, i.e., the ends toward which he is directed are to be distinguished from the means he selects to reach them.
Psychologists talk of basic needs in behavioral terms as the motivators of action. I've raised the notion of needs--the basic needs (also termed "drives")--with respect to the sex drive. However, the general theory of basic needs, postulated as early as by Aristotle (who used the means-ends distinction), maintains that mankind is driven, i.e., motivated, to meet his very basic needs, using what means he thinks will work. Importantly for the current discussion, the means frequently involve the cooperation of others solicited as partners by a requestor-in-need.
In a recent book (Who Am I? 2000) Steven Reiss identifies, by means of empirical research, some 16 basic needs of mankind, he terms "basic desires"--one being, the desire for romance. According to him the ways an individual meets his needs successfully on a regular basis defines his personality and answers the question of self-identity, i.e., who he is. Reiss traces his typology of needs to Abraham Maslow, who had coined the term "self-actualization," the being who reaches the pinnacle of developing his potential. Maslow amplies his position: when an individual develops his being to the point that he has integrated all his needs and found appropriate means for their fulfillment he achieves the Buddhist state of 'Nirvana,' a continuing feeling of happiness grounded in a knowledge of self-worth. Truly, he knows what he wants and has established through the years his own particular ways of meeting them. He's come to "have it his way," so to speak--as in the song recorded by Frank Sinatra, "I had it my way."
Meta-Elements of the Social Love Partnership
An individual, to be sure, need not select a partner by which he intends to meet his basic needs. If he's hungry, he can turn to his microwave to achieve his purpose. As such the microwave becomes a "love-object" even as a lonely child may carry around a bunny for comfort. Notoriously, dogs have served as love objects to be petted and stroked and taken out for walks!
Nevertheless, let's look at the meta-elements of social love among adults, when one person seeks out the help of another to satisfy some need of his.
1. Reaching out behavior of the requestor, i.e., the individual who has identified his personal needs. He singles out another in his environment who he believes can assist him, i.e., a potential partner and engages this other.
2. The potential partner favorably responds: Yes, I'm willing to help you.
3. The dance begins! Enjoined with common purpose, each assumes the role he is to have throughout the experience, focusing on each's part he is to play to bring about need satisfaction on behalf of the requestor.
4. As the recognized participant, each responds accordingly to what the other does in acting out his role.
Particularly important to the experience is the moment of denouement, in which the participants recognize they have indeed performed to reach the crescendo in which the requestor's need is fulfilled.
5, If the experience has indeed reached its peak, each participant should anticipate further instances in which he will perform even as he has in the present binding experience of social love.
The Social Impact of Social Love
I have argued that what adult social love does in a cultural setting is bring about personal need satisfaction, particularly of the basic desires. From a doctor, an individual seeks healing to satisfy his desire for physical well-being. From a chef of a restaurant, a person seeks need satiation for drink and food. Put generally, one's needs are frequently met by interacting with other societal members, who assume a particular stance toward him, enabling particular need fulfillment. By contacting potential partners through the 'yellow pages,' as it were, the individual determines a course of action to achieve his own need satisfaction involving others.
In his book entitled Vital Friends (2006) Tom Rath regards friendship as the fundamental social relationship for one's need fulfillment. He argues, an individual is part of his social milieu and must rely on that milieu to meet his own personal (basic) desires. He notes that given the opportunity, he will choose as his helpers those friends with whom he shares the same dispositions of likes and dislikes, i.e., a value system.
Thus, the impact of social love is that once the individual finds himself in need, he is prompted to search others to cope with it. An experience of social love can happen in which synergistic energy is released. This synergy the requestor undergoes at the moment of need gratification and permeates other aspects of his life, as Maslow seems to recognize. For instance, it is commonplace that in an office setting, two members of a team, working many after-hours, will engage in intimate relationship, the upshot of which is focused dedication upon the project above and beyond what any manager could demand of them!
Similarly, an individual whose health 'miraculously' returns with the aid of a diligent doctor, will vigorously attend to his affairs with renewed interest and enthusiasm.
In sum, there is psychical and physical energy as a well-spring boiling over when the individual achieves basic need fulfillment, such that he becomes energized to work longer and more diligently in what he undertakes and such that untold benefits accrue to his society.
Let's start with the obvious, so we're of one mind in this. A married woman is unable to engage in sexual activity--for one reason or another. Her husband has certain choices to make to enable him to attain sexual release and sexual gratification: masturbation, go to a prostitute, find a congenial partner at work, in his neighborhood, even at church! A "partner" is identified as someone who is willing to help the individual meet his personal need for the purpose of achieving the latter's psychological gratification. Usually, the partner shares the same value system as the requestor, i.e., the person in need (sometimes called the "protagonist"), such that the former is sympathetic and understanding of what the latter is experiencing in his state of need.
If the requestor for help from a partner has anti-social needs driving him, society may be inclined to incarcerate the requestor for the sake of a greater good. Accordingly, persons who have anti-social needs and plan to act upon them should be referred to a psychotherapist or medical doctor for treatment, e.g., as in cases of desiring to rape, to take drugs, even to kill; before they pursue the ends they have in mind.
The importance of the approach here is in my belief that social love occurs between an individual and his partner in each's participation in an event which is to achieve the end, ever in view of each, viz., the requestor's specific need satisfaction. My approach circumvents discussion of some moralists who question the experiential means the requestor asks his potential partner engage in. For example, some Catholics don't want their priests asking anyone to participate in a sexual act for the purpose of his own gratification. To me, the matter of how the requestor thinks he will reach need fulfillment is his okay choice, providing both the need and the way to achieve it are socially acceptable, quite independent of some moralist's dicta.
One may wonder, what the potential partner expects to get out of his participation in an experience aimed at meeting the requestor's needs. Who knows? Obviously, the requestor is concerned about his own need-fulfillment, even should the partner he chooses is to receive no benefit other than the acknowledgement as participant in a drama with ends-in-view, as if being included in the cast of characters of a play.
Importantly, the partner can "opt out" of the (intended) need-fulfillment experience simply by declaring lack of interest in the requestor's personal goals and objectives or even in the particular role that he assented to play. Contrast the ease of "opting out" with dissolving a contract. In divorcing her husband for instance, a woman cannot simply give as a reason that she no longer needs her husband and expect the divorce to be granted. She should refer to the benefits and obligations that govern the contract.
Some "means" the requestor poses may appear shocking to society. A married businessman who chooses an young, attractive escort to accompany him to business functions rather than his secretary or his wife will get his employees' tongues wagging, to be sure, but maybe not those of the businessmen he is desirous to impress!
The Psychological Theory of Basic Needs
A person's behavioral goals, i.e., the ends toward which he is directed are to be distinguished from the means he selects to reach them.
Psychologists talk of basic needs in behavioral terms as the motivators of action. I've raised the notion of needs--the basic needs (also termed "drives")--with respect to the sex drive. However, the general theory of basic needs, postulated as early as by Aristotle (who used the means-ends distinction), maintains that mankind is driven, i.e., motivated, to meet his very basic needs, using what means he thinks will work. Importantly for the current discussion, the means frequently involve the cooperation of others solicited as partners by a requestor-in-need.
In a recent book (Who Am I? 2000) Steven Reiss identifies, by means of empirical research, some 16 basic needs of mankind, he terms "basic desires"--one being, the desire for romance. According to him the ways an individual meets his needs successfully on a regular basis defines his personality and answers the question of self-identity, i.e., who he is. Reiss traces his typology of needs to Abraham Maslow, who had coined the term "self-actualization," the being who reaches the pinnacle of developing his potential. Maslow amplies his position: when an individual develops his being to the point that he has integrated all his needs and found appropriate means for their fulfillment he achieves the Buddhist state of 'Nirvana,' a continuing feeling of happiness grounded in a knowledge of self-worth. Truly, he knows what he wants and has established through the years his own particular ways of meeting them. He's come to "have it his way," so to speak--as in the song recorded by Frank Sinatra, "I had it my way."
Meta-Elements of the Social Love Partnership
An individual, to be sure, need not select a partner by which he intends to meet his basic needs. If he's hungry, he can turn to his microwave to achieve his purpose. As such the microwave becomes a "love-object" even as a lonely child may carry around a bunny for comfort. Notoriously, dogs have served as love objects to be petted and stroked and taken out for walks!
Nevertheless, let's look at the meta-elements of social love among adults, when one person seeks out the help of another to satisfy some need of his.
1. Reaching out behavior of the requestor, i.e., the individual who has identified his personal needs. He singles out another in his environment who he believes can assist him, i.e., a potential partner and engages this other.
2. The potential partner favorably responds: Yes, I'm willing to help you.
3. The dance begins! Enjoined with common purpose, each assumes the role he is to have throughout the experience, focusing on each's part he is to play to bring about need satisfaction on behalf of the requestor.
4. As the recognized participant, each responds accordingly to what the other does in acting out his role.
Particularly important to the experience is the moment of denouement, in which the participants recognize they have indeed performed to reach the crescendo in which the requestor's need is fulfilled.
5, If the experience has indeed reached its peak, each participant should anticipate further instances in which he will perform even as he has in the present binding experience of social love.
The Social Impact of Social Love
I have argued that what adult social love does in a cultural setting is bring about personal need satisfaction, particularly of the basic desires. From a doctor, an individual seeks healing to satisfy his desire for physical well-being. From a chef of a restaurant, a person seeks need satiation for drink and food. Put generally, one's needs are frequently met by interacting with other societal members, who assume a particular stance toward him, enabling particular need fulfillment. By contacting potential partners through the 'yellow pages,' as it were, the individual determines a course of action to achieve his own need satisfaction involving others.
In his book entitled Vital Friends (2006) Tom Rath regards friendship as the fundamental social relationship for one's need fulfillment. He argues, an individual is part of his social milieu and must rely on that milieu to meet his own personal (basic) desires. He notes that given the opportunity, he will choose as his helpers those friends with whom he shares the same dispositions of likes and dislikes, i.e., a value system.
Thus, the impact of social love is that once the individual finds himself in need, he is prompted to search others to cope with it. An experience of social love can happen in which synergistic energy is released. This synergy the requestor undergoes at the moment of need gratification and permeates other aspects of his life, as Maslow seems to recognize. For instance, it is commonplace that in an office setting, two members of a team, working many after-hours, will engage in intimate relationship, the upshot of which is focused dedication upon the project above and beyond what any manager could demand of them!
Similarly, an individual whose health 'miraculously' returns with the aid of a diligent doctor, will vigorously attend to his affairs with renewed interest and enthusiasm.
In sum, there is psychical and physical energy as a well-spring boiling over when the individual achieves basic need fulfillment, such that he becomes energized to work longer and more diligently in what he undertakes and such that untold benefits accrue to his society.
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