Summary: The Benefits Of Reminiscence Therapy

One of the most significant benefits of positively reminiscing about past experiences is that it is an opportunity for elderly to tell the others their meaningful aspects of life events but also help them to reappraise their emotional state (Cook, 1998; Davis, 2004). Bohlmeijer and colleagues (2008) reported that reminiscence significantly improved the overall meaning of life, self-evaluation and social relations of elderly participants. Also, researchers have investigated the effect of reminiscence therapy on various cognitive, psychological, social, behavioral, and health outcome measures. These include depression, self-esteem, self-concept, self-assessment, self-acceptance, self-change ego integrity, ego strength, mood, anxiety, coping self-efficacy,
According to Frederick and Loewenstein (1999), hedonic adaptation refers to the psychological process by which people become acquainted with a positive (or negative) stimulus, that the emotional effects of that stimulus (i.e., love and/or hate) are crippled (or debilitated) over time. In other words, the rewards of positive reminiscence can dissipate with time and may impact one’s motivation to persist in these activities to pursue happiness (Lyubomirsky, 2011; Sheldon et al. 2012). Explicitly, the most famous finding regarding adaptation is that lottery winners may readjust to their newfound wealth, while falling back to their previous emotional baseline in a lapse (Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman’s 1978). Indeed, hedonic adaptation is a unique feature in human nature, such that one always returns to their original state. However, adaptation is necessary to recover from negative experiences. On the contrary, it also appears to impact positive experiences in a much greater note and serves as the ultimate barrier to happiness seekers. This does not necessarily mean that elderly adults who seek happiness are predispose to fail; one manner in which a person can battle adaptation is through “taking a break” in these activities (Quoidbach & Dunn, 2012); thus, frequent practice of the intervention may lose its meaning. Quoidbach and Dunn (2012) argues that, “giving up something enjoyable may counter hedonic adaptation by renewing the capacity to appreciate it, and therefore increasing happiness.” If this were the case, practitioners may want to consider having a variety of strategies to induce positive reminiscence in guiding the elderlies, and/or a wide selection of positive activities to counteract