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Midlife Concerns and Caregiving Experiences: Intersecting Life Issues Affecting Mental Health

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The Challenges of Mental Health Caregiving

Part of the book series: Caregiving: Research • Practice • Policy ((CARE))

Abstract

Caregiving is one experience that transcends or perhaps permeates the multiple perspectives required to understand midlife experiences. The fact that families are the frontline of care, and that one in four households includes a caregiver, has been well established (Family Caregiving in the U.S.: Findings from a National Survey, 1997). Among those who provide care, persons in midlife predominate (Marks, Family Relations 45:27–36, 1996). At any time, approximately 20 % of midlife women and 14 % of midlife men provide care to relatives and friends who are ill or have disabilities. Caregiving during the middle years is so common that Brody (Gerontologist 25:19–29, 1985) defined it as a normative midlife experience, a definition recently challenged by Putney and Bengtson (Handbook of Midlife Development, 2001), and Cavanaugh (Clinical Geropsychology, 1998) explained it as a normative “life event challenge” (p. 131). To get a further understanding of caregiving in midlife, it is first necessary to understand midlife and the normative developmental processes and experiences of this period of life.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Counseling & Educational Development, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 217 Curry Building, 27402-6171, Greensboro, NC, USA

    Jane E. Myers PhD, LPC, NCC

  2. St. Marys University, 78228, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Melanie C. Harper PhD, LPC, NCC

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  1. Jane E. Myers PhD, LPC, NCC
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  2. Melanie C. Harper PhD, LPC, NCC
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Correspondence to Jane E. Myers PhD, LPC, NCC .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA

    Ronda C. Talley

  2. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Gregory L. Fricchione

  3. Dept. Health Policy and Management Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Benjamin G. Druss

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Myers, J., Harper, M. (2014). Midlife Concerns and Caregiving Experiences: Intersecting Life Issues Affecting Mental Health. In: Talley, R., Fricchione, G., Druss, B. (eds) The Challenges of Mental Health Caregiving. Caregiving: Research • Practice • Policy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8791-3_7

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