[Psychotherapeutic goals for elderly patients]

The psychotherapy of elderly people in the past seems to have paid less attention to the treatment of (neurotic, psychoreactive) illness and instead concentrated on coping with getting older, the final stage of life and/or the search for sense in life. The aims published concentrate more on the contemplative or deficient view which psychotherapists themselves have of the process of getting older, on their own distance to old age and on their insufficient treatment experience. The result of this is reductionist planning leading to decisive therapy modifications.