Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development - Hardcover

Vaillant MD, George E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316989363 ISBN 13: 9780316989367

Publisher: Little, Brown Spark, 2002

Synopsis

In an unprecedented series of studies, Harvard Medical School has followed 824 subjects -- men and women, some rich, some poor -- from their teens to old age. Harvard's George Vaillant now uses these studies -- the most complete ever done anywhere in the world -- and the subjects' individual histories to illustrate the factors involved in reaching a happy, healthy old age.

He explains precisely why some people turn out to be more resilient than others, the complicated effects of marriage and divorce, negative personality changes, and how to live a more fulfilling, satisfying and rewarding life in the later years. He shows why a person's background has less to do with their eventual happiness than the specific lifestyle choices they make. And he offers step-by-step advice about how each of us can change our lifestyles and age successfully. Sure to be debated on talk shows and in living rooms, Vaillant's definitive and inspiring book is the new classic account of how we live and how we can live better. It will receive massive media attention, and with good reason: we have never seen anything like it, and what it has to tell us will make all the difference in the world.

About this title

About the Author

George E. Vaillant, M.D., is a widely respected researcher, psychiatrist, and professor at the Harvard Medical School.

He is also the author of several books, including Adaptation to Life and the classic The Natural History of Alcoholism.

Reviews

An unavoidable task of the living is to change with time. Change is psychologically painful. Combined with the physical reality of stiff joints, facial wrinkles, and frustrating forgetfulness, aging is neither relished nor revered by our society. We empower ourselves with antioxidant vitamins, wrinkle-reduction surgery, and hair dye to prevent, reverse, disrupt, delay, or disguise the aging process. We prove our value by maintaining a ridiculously fast pace with an effervescent smile. We define our self-worth according to the many external modifiers that proclaim our youth. We are caught up in a fantasy that belies reality -- every day, our mind and body grow older. The first definition of the verb "age" provided by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, ninth edition, is "to become old: show the effects or the characteristics of increasing age." The definition is nonjudgmental but is equally uninspiring. Whatever aging is, we do not need to welcome it. The second definition causes us to step back: to age is "to acquire a desirable quality by standing undisturbed for some time" or "to become mellow or mature." In his book Aging Well, George Vaillant takes this second definition of aging to a new level. Using a unique data base of standardized interviews exploring the psychological health of nearly 700 men beginning in 1939, he investigates whether important and potentially destructive situations in youth (e.g., disinterested or abusive parents or poverty) affect the psychological makeup of adults. Each participant was extensively reexamined at five-year intervals, allowing the assessment to evolve as individual development proceeded. The primary focus of the book is the characterization of healthy men and women in their 70s and older. The data on women are scant -- there are only 40 follow-up interviews from an original cohort of 300 women -- but this data base is better than most with regard to longitudinal research in women. The book presents astonishing observations that do not always fit social myths. Unfortunate circumstances in youth do not doom a person to an unhappy adulthood: "What goes right in childhood predicts the future far better than what goes wrong." Friendships with younger persons enhance the enjoyment of old age; these successful friendships are not so-called relationships in which the elderly are coddled by the young. Instead, the elderly give more than they take. A few observations add to the already overwhelming evidence that certain factors are associated with a healthy lifestyle. Cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse are more than bad habits; they destroy us. Exercise improves our ability to enjoy life. The style of the book is enjoyable. Carefully chosen case histories (with names changed to protect confidentiality) are used to illustrate the technical points. The tendency toward simplicity is studiously avoided. Rigidity in thinking is not always maladaptive. Wisdom is multifaceted, and its definition changes with the circumstance. Successfully aging women do not take care of others but rather enrich the lives of other, younger people by sharing current experiences with them. For nonscientific readers, Aging Well will provide the stimulus to reexamine their life and to determine whether they are doing everything possible to age well. The book will help readers systematically evaluate whether they have the infrastructure needed to age well. Aging Well may lead scientific readers down that bumpy road named "psychiatry." They may feel threatened by the apparent judgments passed by the interviewers on the lifestyles of the participants. If so, such readers should read the appendixes first. These explain why and how the cohorts were established, who paid for this work, and what was expected from the results. There are vignettes of immature and mature defenses to an imaginary traumatic event, followed by rating scales that lead to scores, which in turn lead to the separation of participants into "happy-well" and "sad-sick" categories. After finishing these appendixes, readers will then appreciate Vaillant's humbleness and nonjudgmental approach. During the course of 30 years of work, Vaillant had to admit that the shape and scope of his own developmental concepts kept changing as the study progressed. Although we all have anecdotal experience that aging can be fun, this book provides the only available longitudinal assessment of the factors that will permit us to age well. Aging well is giving to others. It is accepting our limitations with humor and dignity. It is cultivating the sparks of interest into our own eternal flame. Margo A. Denke, M.D.
Copyright © 2002 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

This groundbreaking sociological analysis is based on three research projects that followed over 800 people from their adolescence through old age. Subjects were drawn from the Harvard Grant study of white males, the Inner City study of non-delinquent males and the Terman Women study of gifted females, begun respectively in 1921, 1930 and 1911. In all three studies, subjects were interviewed at regular intervals over time, a design that prevented observations from being skewed by the distortions of memory and allowed for analyses that distinguished effect from cause. Vaillant (The Natural History of Alcoholism), a psychiatrist and professor at the Harvard Medical School, brings a nuanced point of view and an acceptance of the project's limitations. (Those followed were not randomly selected and were overwhelmingly Caucasian.) Nevertheless the author makes compelling use of his data, which is based on intensive contacts with a variety of subjects. Vaillant posits that successful physical and emotional aging is most dependent on a lack of tobacco and alcohol abuse by subjects, an adaptive coping style, maintaining healthy weight with some exercise, a sustained loving (in most cases, marital) relationship and years of education. This is good news since factors that cannot be altered, such as ancestral longevity, parental characteristics and childhood temperament, were among those ruled out as predictors. The book's academic tone will reassure some readers and put others off, but Vaillant's arresting interviews with selected subjects (recounted here) and his ability to learn from the subjects make this an outstanding contribution to the study of aging. National publicity.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Vaillant, a psychiatrist interested in adult development, has been associated with three studies in that field for more than 30 years. The subjects of those studies are, respectively, 268 Harvard graduates, 456 disadvantaged inner-city men, and 90 intellectually gifted women. The figures are important because none are large or socially broad enough to be extrapolated to the general public, and Vaillant never claims otherwise. Yet, illustrating his points with highly personal case histories, he offers much valuable information about aging, and his judgment calls (his term) are perceptive, understanding, and often tinged with delightful humor. He identifies six great tasks of becoming an adult and emphasizes the necessity of social, emotional, and physical health. Unfortunately, he finds that neither wisdom nor spirituality necessarily grows with age. Still, retirement isn't inevitably a major life problem, and luck can be a decisive factor. People age individually, and predicting what a young or middle-aged person will become with age is often impossible. Vaillant, a self-described optimist nevertheless, contributes sensibly to a field famous for vapid, ivory-tower writing. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

A respected researcher, psychiatrist, professor at Harvard Medical School, and author of several books (e.g., The Natural History of Alcoholism), Vaillant uses individual life histories to illustrate how social and emotional development is an ongoing process. His work is based on Harvard's Study of Adult Development, which followed "824 individuals all selected as teenagers for different facets of mental and physical health more than half a century ago and studied for their entire lives." Participants answered biennial questionnaires and underwent physical examinations every five years. Vaillant points out that, while studies like this one are not representative, they do reveal how lifestyle choices can affect whether we reach a happy and healthy old age. He describes the developmental processes that make old age vital being ill without feeling sick, regaining the capacity of creativity and play, acquiring wisdom, and cultivating spirituality and offers suggestions for successful and happy aging. Highly recommended.
- Jodith Janes, Cleveland Clinic Fdn. Lib.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316989363
• ISBN 13: 9780316989367
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384