Railing Against the Rush of Years

Robert B. MacIntyre is head of the Centre for Relationship Therapy and
Education in Orangeville, Ontario.

This collaboration between an art therapist and a 79-year-old client,
herself a Gestalt therapist, is a moving document of the aging process.
The book contains poems, paintings, and short prose segments that were
written by Claire Ridker over the course of her therapy, as well as
short comments and reflections by Patricia Savage, her therapist.

A dynamic woman, Claire rages against the changes in vitality,
strength, and social role that accompany old age and retirement. After
her retirement at 79, she struggles to find validation in her present
life. Over the course of both her therapy and her recovery from a
serious illness, she moves to a greater acceptance of the inevitability
of aging and to a renewed creativity. As she says in this touching and
very human book, she may never relinquish her rage, but she can allow
her creative child to play.