Later life can be a time when our established routines and coping strategies are challenged by retirement, losses, changes in social role and disabilities, resulting in frightening threats to the integrity of self. Such changes may jeopardise longstanding and cherished ways of relating – patterns that may seem to be bound up with our very identity, but which may become problematic or restrictive as circumstances evolve.

Part of the ‘Innovations in CAT’ series, and written by CAT practitioners along with service users, Conversations in Later Life offers an antidote to the philosophy of ‘don’t make a fuss’. Taking a lifespan approach, it provides an understanding of emotional difficulties in later life along with a means to look after feelings in order to better manage distress. With its emphasis on social context and development of the self over time, CAT is well-placed to explore issues of identity as they evolve with age.