Liora Bar-Tur

Sources of meaning in life for young and old Israeli Jews and Arabs

Abstract This paper presents preliminary findings generated by the Sources of Life Meaning (SLM), a special instrument compiled to measure the sources of meaning in life for two different ethnic and age groups in Israel. Respondents were 362 younger and older Arab and Jewish women and men. The results reveal the impact of ethnicity and age on most of the 10 sources of meaning, despite similarities in breadth of meaning manifested in the overall amount of meaning in life in all groups. The differences tend to vary according to age group, as more differences are apparent among the older respondents than among the younger ones. Gender impacted on only three sources of meaning, suggesting that culture and age may overshadow gender differences.

Long Term Bereavement Processes of Older Parents: The Three Phases of Grief

This study is based upon personal interviews with 47 elderly bereaved parents. These interviews provided us with detailed and extensive information on the bereavement processes that parents experience over a long period of years. From an in-depth content analysis of the interviews and the way the parents described bereavement, it seems that it is a central motif in their lives affecting their relationships with each other, with the living children, with friends, at work and with others. Although enduring grief along the life cycle is an un-patterned process with emotional and cognitive ups and downs, involving a continuous search for a meaning to life, we observed a development in this process throughout the years. As we proposed in a previous study (Malkinson & Bar-Tur, 2000) there are three main identifiable phases in the bereavement process: the immediate, acute phase; grief through the years until aging; and bereavement in old age. We propose to refer to them as the three main phases in the development of parental grieving process and name them “young grief,” “mature grief,” and “aging grief.”

Well-being in aging: Mental engagements in elderly men as a moderator of losses

Abstract To explore the intrapsychic components of adjustment in aging, this study investigated whether mental and emotional engagements with the present and the past contribute positively to well-being in elderly men, and whether any of these engagements can moderate the negative effects of losses on well-being. Mental engagements are the cognitive components of both the outer and the inner world. They comprise the activities and interests with which the individual is mentally involved and which occupy his mind. Emotional engagements with significant others include the relationships with significant people in ones life cycle. Mental and emotional engagements with significant others also consist of preoccupation with the past through representation in the inner world of significant objects, events, and people. Participants were 60 elderly retired Australian men. The results indicated that all the engagements were positively associated with well-being, but that only mental engagement with the present buffered the negative impact of loss of work and loss of health on well-being.

Past traumatic losses and their impact on the well-being of elderly men

Abstract This study explored the effect of past traumatic losses on the well-being of elderly men, focusing on losses related to the Nazi Holocaust and on traumatic personal losses of significant others. Two issues were addressed: the relationships between past traumatic losses and well-being in aging and the interaction between past traumatic losses and current age-related losses (work loss, health loss, financial loss, and social loss). Data were collected from 60 elderly men via a semistructured interview. Past traumatic losses were found to have an impact on well-being in aging. However while Holocaust losses had a negative impact, traumatic personal losses had a positive impact. In addition, health loss in aging tended to negatively affect well-being. Interactions were found between past traumatic losses and aging losses in predicting well-being in aging. Results are discussed within the vulnerability and inoculation perspectives.