Theoretical Development and Elder Mistreatment: Spreading Awareness and Conceptual Complexity in Examining the Management of Socio-Emotional Boundaries

This paper critically examines the spread of awareness of elder abuse and neglect (mistreatment) and asks how this has occurred without an accompanying growth in theoretical understanding. Three areas of conceptual development are identified that acknowledge the special qualities of elder mistreatment. These include a focus at the level of interpersonal relationships, a recognition that situations are negotiated between adults and that age, either intergenerationally or between age peers is a significant factor in the form mistreatment takes. Rather than allowing definitional inflation, it is argued that theoretical boundaries are needed to allow the complex nature of mistreatment to become visible. Reactions to emotional ambivalence are proposed as an important area that helps explain the phenomenon, both conceptually and practically. Understanding the role of emotional ambivalence it is argued, would lead to sustainable solutions to the mistreatment of older people.