The history of clinical psychology moved from its origins in the 19th century with an emphasis on the mental examination of children, through projective techniques and psychotherapy, to clinical work with all stages of the life cycle. The aged have been the last group to be included as a separate source of clinical work. The employment situation in the profession and science of psychology is reviewed, with trends pointing to a clinical psychology of old age. Facilities that will be at the forefront of the demand are government-supported nursing homes and long-term-care hospitals. Few clinicians are trained properly for this work, but guidelines are offered that would ameliorate the situation. (18 ref)

The effects of positive and negative emotions on concern for others (altruism) and awareness of others (social inference) were investigated with 60 male and 61 female public school educable (IQ 50–80) retarded 13-, 14-, and 15-yr.-old adolescents. That induced positive affect would increase altruism was supported. A significant, positive correlation (.27 and .25) was found between altruism and social inference.

Emphasized is the view that geriatric psychotherapy can be effectively administered only with knowledge of the biology, psychology, and sociology of old age. The concepts of transference, countertransference, interpretation, conflict and defense mechanisms are crucial for understanding the various treatment modalities. Five intervention patterns are offered for the therapeutic approaches, i.e., interpretation, suggestion, reinforcement, confrontation, and clarification. The different modalities of geriatric psychotherapy may be viewed as variations of different clusters of these interventions, e.g., psychoanalysis makes most use of interpretation whereas group therapy makes most use of confrontation and clarification. For the psychologic treatment of disorders in late life, there are five basic modalities and one adjunct. The basic psychotherapies are classified as psychoanalytic, supportive, group, family, and behavioral; the adjunct is psychopharmacologic treatment, which is not a substitute for effective psychotherapy. Much semantic confusion has centered around this adjunctive treatment. Conceptual confusions about the meaning of the word "cure" are discussed.

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