AARP Meditations for Caregivers:
Practical, Emotional, and Spiritual Support for You and Your Family. By
Barry J. Jacobs, Psy.D., and Julia L. Mayer, Psy.D. Da Capo. $15.99.
Deeply well-meaning and
structured with the intent to be pragmatic rather than overly optimistic and
blue-sky in nature, AARP Meditations for
Caregivers attempts to answer the needs of those who selflessly answer the
needs of others – such as aging parents and seriously ill family members.
Husband-and-wife clinical psychologists Barry J. Jacobs and Julia L. Mayer
clearly intended to write a book both practical and inspiring. That is, in
fact, the book’s structure: its 28 chapters on specific topics are subdivided
into sections that begin with a short story taken from a real-life situation,
then continue with a comment or suggestion on how to apply the lessons of that
story to one’s own situation. The structure is not unlike that of a typical
church homily.
The attempt here is to deal
with a comprehensive list of caregivers’ feelings and concerns: among the
chapter titles are “Anger or Resentment,” “Devotion and Dedication,”
“Forgiveness,” “Gratitude,” “Humility,” “Humor,” “Know Your Limits,” “Optimism
and Hope,” “Sacrifice,” and “Stress Management.” Really, though, the entire
book is about stress management: some 40 million Americans provide unpaid care
to family members and others in any given year, and even when such care occurs
only for a set period rather than for many years – because the person needing
it recovers or dies – the stresses associated with it are enormous. Whether
those stresses are adequately met by the sermonette-like comments of Jacobs and
Mayer will be a highly personal matter: people soothed by traditional religious
observances, for example, will likely respond better to these ideas than ones
who are less spiritual or less comfortable with organized religion (even though
the summations and recommendations are generally secular in orientation). For instance,
an observation about sibling anger during caregiving says, “By leading with
empathy, we forge new bases for understanding and support.” One about
forgiveness says, “As we gain greater understanding, our hearts grow.” One
about understanding one’s limits notes, “By knowing the limits of our energies
and capabilities, we are better able to find compromises to please others and
ourselves the best we can.” One about respect says, “Even when it comes to
difficult situations, when we take the time to listen to our loved ones, we can
better treat them with the respect that they deserve.”
All these comments, and many
others, are extremely well-intended; but they have a tendency to be more
simplistic, more push-button, one-size-fits-all in their orientation, than
Jacob and Mayer likely are in their professional practice. What is missing in
the book is nuance – exactly the sort of thing that is needed to differentiate
between responses and forms of support that may be just right for one caregiver
but off-base for another. This directly parallels the reality that a useful way
of providing caregiving to one individual may be unhelpful and even deleterious
for another – because those needing aid are
individuals, no matter how physically or mentally compromised they may be and
no matter how similar their diagnoses. Identical treatment of identical
conditions may not work equally well – a point that it would have been helpful
for Jacobs and Mayer to make explicitly.
AARP Meditations for Caregivers also omits some very practical
issues that caregivers face: it is a book about feelings, not one about the
need to cope in the real world with financial hardship, job loss, deterioration
of relationships with children because of the time and effort needed to care
for parents (a “sandwich generation” situation), and the difficulty (if not
impossibility) of finding the time to do certain things that a caregiver knows
are desirable – for instance, saying “Seek Out Other Caregivers” (one chapter title
here) is all well and good, but “Find the Time to Seek Out Other Caregivers”
would have been more useful if the authors were really able to show how to do
it.
One of the most important
things that caregivers must do, and one of the most difficult, is to find time
for themselves. Call it recharging, unwinding, destressing or whatever you
will, it is crucial both for a caregiver’s own coping needs and for his or her
ability to provide better care. AARP
Meditations for Caregivers does not deal with this much-needed element of
caregiving except occasionally in passing, as when Jacobs and Mayer write, “If
we aim for perfection in our caregiving, we will be wracked with disappointment
and guilt. Our loved ones need good enough caregivers. With humility and
planning, we can manage that.” Yes – with humility and planning and time, time to get in touch with
one’s own needs (practical, family, emotional, psychological) and to separate,
however briefly, from the needs of the person requiring care. AARP Meditations for Caregivers is a
valuable book for those seeking solace from the emotionally draining elements
of caregiving, and able to find it in the warm and well-meaning words of
encouragement the authors offer. The book does not, however, deal with some of the
most stress-provoking and difficult elements of caregiving: readers looking for
that sort of help may actually do better with an earlier book by Jacobs, The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers:
Looking After Yourself and Your Family While Helping an Aging Parent. It
would be even better to read and absorb both that book and this one – provided
one can find the time to do so. And there we come again to the issue of time –
ultimately, one that neither of the books successfully addresses, and one that may
not be realistically addressable, no matter how much one wishes to do so.
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