Caresharing
A Reciprocal Approach to Caregiving and Care Receiving in the Complexities of Aging, Illness or Disability
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- $31.99
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- $31.99
Publisher Description
The word caregiver typically suggests someone doing all the giving for a frail, physically or mentally challenged, or aging person who is doing all the receiving. Marty Richards proposes a rebalanced approach of 'caresharing.' From this perspective, the 'cared for' and the 'carer' share a deep sense of connection. Each has strengths and resources. Each can teach the other. Each can share in grief, hope, love and wisdom. Richards shows you how to move from independent caregiving to interdependent caresharing by engaging the spiritual and emotional aspects of caring for a loved one. Whether you are a daughter or son, a husband or wife, a sibling, long-term partner or good friend, CARESHARING offers a multi-layered, reciprocal process that will help you keep your spirit-and your loved one's spirit-alive in challenging times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A clinical social worker with decades of experience, Richards (Caregiving: Church and Family Together) knows her subject deeply. She proposes revising the usual understanding of caregiving; it's not a one-way connection in which one gives and the other receives, but rather a mutual relationship of shared care that takes advantage of each person's strengths. This is a radical and timely idea given the aging of 78 million baby boomers and the present experience of millions now caring for aging, ill or disabled loved ones. Also innovative is Richards's steady insistence that care sharing is spiritual work; with this view, resources multiply, from congregational support to supplies of hope and meaning. The book is eminently practical, with dozens of suggestions and a helpful and manageable bibliography of key texts from the growing literature. But Richards is more than a peripheral observer; she conveys in a caring way her profound understanding of this inevitable part of the life cycle. There are, and will be, many books about caregiving; this one is sensitive and essential.
