Their smiles, bright eyes and exclamations of delight demonstrate that the correct match has occurred with their early educational experiences and their reminiscence flows. A book with Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot, and Puff evokes a similar response. This is a simple experiential demonstration of the use of reminiscence and life review activities in counseling older adults. Reminiscence and life review are especially important principles to utilize when assessing and treating older adults.
Reminiscence is important both from an anthropological and psychological perspective.
In other cultures, like the American Indians, the elders become the respected story-tellers, a crucially important and valued role only played by those living the longest. By placing value in aging and demonstrating to older adults that their life stories are important and that living has made them wise, rapport is developed and they are able to be more open about their problems and issues. He sees older adults in the stage of life as striving to integrate past psychological themes into a new level of psychological meaning. Just as the adolescent child sees the world from a different level than the infant, and the middle-aged adult sees the world differently from the young adult, older adults have a unique and wiser perspective about the world and the life he or she has led. Looking at one's lifetime and achieving a sense of integrity about one's life is what Erikson sees as the final stage of life.