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At the age of 78, Elizabeth Bugental recently had her first book, AgeSong, published by Elders Academy Press.
Dr. Nader Shabahangi is the Founder of both Pacific Institute and Elders Academy Press.
About AgeSong
Growing old is not an option. But how we age is a choice. At least we like to think so. AgeSong gives us a pleasurable nudge and a little inspiration to take charge of our aging. None of us knows how many years this final life-phase will last, but it's a pretty good bet that it will last at least as long as our adolescence. If we can remember back that far, unlike this life-phase, those teens and early twenties seemed to go on forever and we sure didn't have a plan. Now we're old enough and maybe even wise enough to decide how we'd like to live before we die. And maybe we even have the guts to make the choices we need to make to do it in style.
The style, of course, needs to be our own, not one planned out for us by society, our children, our peers, or even our personal habitual mind-sets. We're finally old enough to consult our deeper selves and do it our way.
AgeSong can be taken in small doses to direct our thinking toward the possibilities ahead of us rather than the life we've left behind. It offers us a look into a world that, for many of us, has always been available, but which we may not have had the physical or mental luxury of enjoying. It provides us a simple, yet profound, breathing space to take in the richness within our reach that could fill our last days with wonder and gratitude.
About Elizabeth Bugental
Elizabeth Bugental spent her 20s and 30s as a Catholic nun in Los Angeles. She has taught on all levels and was, for over a decade, Chairperson of the Department of Theatre Arts at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. Her second career , lasting into her sixties, was as a psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, in private practice and working jointly with her husband of thirty-six years, James Bugental, noted Psychologist and author. She holds a doctorate in Speech and Drama from Stanford University, a Masters Degree from Catholic University of America and is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
About Faces of Aging
The purpose of this book, by Dr. Nader Shabahangi, is to look at the aging process with a fresh eye and an open heart. Our culture tends to emphasize the negative characteristics of old age. We often ignore the elderly or treat them with carelessness. Where and how did we learn this? What has led so many of the elderly to describe themselves as useless members of society? Who or what decides these definitions? And to what end? How do we remain conscious of the ways in which we impose our own fears of aging, of death, or the changes that invariably occur as we age, onto the elderly themselves: If we ask ourselves to face our own fears of aging and dying, maybe we can begin to understand how these fears express themselves in our work with and attitudes toward the elderly. How, in our interactions with the elderly, can we remain open to what they have to offer us, not only because they have more life experience than we do, but because they are entrusted in our care? How does our contact with the elderly inform our awareness of our own inner elders? How is the whole topic of the elderly important to those of us in the younger generations? What if we couldn't wait to be old, like a child can't wait to be an adult? This book is for anyone who is intrigued by such a prospect.
Nader's desire to stir up the processes of thinking and feeling about the many faces of aging also turned this project into a book of /images of the elderly. You are invited to ponder these photographs and see what they mean to you. Let these faces also speak for themselves, free of words or preconceptions.
About Nader Shabahangi
Nader Shabahangi received his doctorate from Stanford University researching basic philosophical assumptions underlying present-day pyschotherapies. He is also a licensed psychotherapist. His multicultural background has made him an advocate for different marginalized groups of society throughout his adult life. In the 1980's he worked with abused children and teenagers and led anticipatory bereavement groups for Coming Home Hospice. In 1992 he founded the non-profit organization Pacific Institute with the purpose of training psychotherapists in a multicultural, humanistic approach to counseling and to provide affordable therapy services to the many diverse groups living in San Francisco.
In 1994, noticing the often inhumane treatment of the elderly living in institutions, he started to develop an innovative Gerontological Wellness Program in order to provide emotional support and mental health care services for the elderly.
In 1997, together with his two brothers, sister, and another business partner, Nader opened a residential care home for the elderly in San Francisco called Hayes Valley Care, where he could along with the Pacific institute Internship team implement the Gerontological Wellness Program.
Nader continues to create programs with the purpose of caring more comprehensively for the elderly. In 2002 he helped found Pacific Institute Europe in Warsaw, Poland, in order to bring gerontological and comprehensive care services to the European continent. He was also inspired to explore new ideas for community living and began design of a 'village' concept for older adults he calls 'Elders Academy'. In 2003 he co-founded Elders Academy Press, a publishing program of Pacific Institute and Pacific Institute Europe, specifically dedicated to promoting writings of and for elders.
Last year - combining his passion for the elderly with his love for photography and philosophy - Nader wrote Faces of Aging as a tribute and celebration of being an elder. He continues this exploration through teaching 'eldership' workshops in Europe and the United States. These meetings explore the difference between getting 'old' and growing into the role of an elder and have the purpose of preparing us for old age and eldership.
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