Explores the experience, meaning, and impact of divorce at mid-life for women without children, and gives insights into the unique stressors and issues confronting these individuals so that the practitioner can better anticipate and meet their needs. This book provides case examples, clinical themes, and suggests coping techniques and strategies.
Women divorced at midlife without children are a group that is "out of sync" in a society that is still primarily a "married, mothering" world. This book explores the clinical issues, dilemmas, and challenges for women in this role. The book presents a solution focused, relational/constructionist clinical approach and therapeutic techniques for working with these women. Application of clinical techniques and case examples are presented, and new concepts for women's recovery and development such as role innovation, meaning modification, autonomous competence, and an expanded family life cycle are also suggested in the book.
"...an enlightening and rich piece of qualitative work that held my interest...Debra Castaldo has done a good job of presenting the slim empirical and clinical literature relative to this population, a review of the problem in the women's own voice, and a suggested therapeutic approach that sounds promising, to guide other therapists in serving this population...Castaldo has outlined a therapeutic procedure that should help divorced, childless women avoid becoming "invisible" as they continue to age."
- Sex Roles