THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL GROUP - A TOOL FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF PAST LIFE EXPERIENCE WITH THE AGED

From a personal construct point of view, writing autobiographical texts becomes a relevant therapeutic ingredient for elderly individuals.1 If conducted in a context of a group, as Birren proposes [1, 2]; it promotes self-awareness, self-disclosure, and the capacity of generating alternative views of life's experiences. In a group of elderly volunteers from a recreational society of Barcelona (Spain), the guided autobiography method was used to foster the reconstruction of the participant's past life experiences. The degree of reconstruction was assessed through a design that included the administration of a repertory grid at the initial and tenth (last) session. A parallel assessment was applied to a control group of participants with similar demographic characteristics. An adaptation of the method proposed by Feixas for the analysis of autobiographical texts was used to assess the