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How-to guide

Life review at home in eight conversations

Plan eight life review conversations at home, with original questions for each life period, listening advice, and a clear account of the research.

A life review is a planned conversation about a person's life, moving through different periods and considering what those experiences mean to them now. At home, it can give an older adult and someone they trust a way to talk beyond the stories they already tell often.

This guide offers eight structured life review conversations for an older adult without dementia who wants to look back. The questions are our own, and the schedule is a family adaptation inspired by life review practice. This is not therapy or medical advice.

Use the questions that fit. Skip anything too private, and follow the details the person wants to share. Ask whether they want a recording, written notes, or simply time to talk.

Where the idea comes from

Psychiatrist Robert Butler described life review in 1963. Barbara and Barrett Haight later set out an eight-visit method in The Handbook of Structured Life Review, drawing on Erik Erikson's account of development across a lifetime.

The handbook's visits include preparation, periods of life, and time to reflect and close. The conversations below use a different arrangement so families can spend more time on individual life periods. They do not reproduce the handbook's Life Review Form or its therapeutic protocol.

Reminiscence means recalling past experiences; it can happen individually or in groups, and dementia care is one setting where people use it. Life review adds a deliberate look across a life and what its events mean. Dignity therapy is a separate clinical approach that includes an edited document for the person to review and share; our dignity therapy questions guide explains it, while our memory-loss guide covers conversations adapted for someone with dementia.

Choose someone they can speak freely with

A friend, relative, or volunteer can listen to a family life review. The Haights' publisher describes their handbook as suitable for professionals and nonprofessionals, including volunteers, and emphasizes the listener's role.

Ask the person whom they would like to talk with. Someone outside the family may be easier to speak to when the stories involve relatives who would otherwise be listening. Agree who may hear the recording or read the notes, including whether anything should stay private.

When the purpose is treating depression or working through trauma, involve a qualified clinician. A family listener can give attention and ask follow-up questions; responsibility for treatment belongs with a professional.

Make a plan you can change

For this family version, try meeting once a week at a familiar time. Set aside 45 to 60 minutes, and finish sooner whenever the person wants. These are planning suggestions, not a tested treatment schedule.

Choose one life period for each conversation. Let the person finish their thoughts without interrupting to correct a name, argue about an event, or supply your version. If a detail needs checking for a written record, ask about it later with their permission.

Move broadly forward through the years, while allowing connections to earlier conversations. Someone may remember a detail next week or want to change how they described it. Leave room for that.

At the end, ask whether there is anything they want left out of the record and whether they would like to meet again. Keep any recording somewhere you have agreed on together.

1. Getting started and early childhood

Begin by agreeing what the person hopes to talk about. Then invite an early memory they feel comfortable sharing. Names or places may need explaining; ask enough to understand without turning the conversation into a test of dates.

  1. What would you like these conversations to cover?
  2. Where would you like to begin your story?
  3. What do you remember about the place where you spent your early years?
  4. Who was around you then?
  5. Is there anything about that time you understand differently now?

2. Family and home

Spend this visit on the people and routines around them as they grew up. Their account may include several households, people outside the family, or periods they prefer to leave out.

If they mention a move or a change in who looked after them, let them decide how much to explain.

  1. What do you remember about the places you lived then?
  2. What was an ordinary day there like?
  3. Who did you spend time with outside your household?
  4. Were there customs you enjoyed, or ones you later chose to change?
  5. What from that time has stayed part of your life?

3. Adolescence

Ask about the years when their interests and choices began to change. School may belong in this conversation, but work or responsibilities at home may have occupied more of their time.

Give them time to explain the circumstances around a decision. What sounds surprising today may have made sense within the choices they had.

  1. What took up your days as a teenager?
  2. Who did you like spending time with?
  3. What interested you enough that you wanted to learn more about it?
  4. What choices did you have about what came next?
  5. How do you see yourself at that age now?

4. Young adulthood

Explore how their adult life took shape. Include relationships or parenting only if they want to discuss them. A first job, a move, or a friendship can be a starting point.

If their plans changed, ask what happened next without assuming the change was welcome or regretted.

  1. How were you spending your time in your early adult years?
  2. Which decisions from then do you remember clearly?
  3. Who became important to you during that period?
  4. Was there something you tried that changed your direction?
  5. Was there anything you came to understand about what suited you?

5. Middle adulthood

Ask about daily life in middle adulthood, including details beyond jobs and family responsibilities.

They may talk about something they accomplished or something they wish had gone differently. Listen to either without requiring a lesson from it.

  1. What filled an ordinary week during those years?
  2. Which responsibilities took most of your attention?
  3. Was there work, paid or unpaid, that you valued?
  4. Was there anything you had time for outside those responsibilities?
  5. Did your priorities change during this period?

6. Older adulthood

Talk about how life changed as they grew older. Retirement may be relevant; continued work, caring for someone, or moving home may be more central. Let them choose where this period begins.

Changes can bring relief, difficulty, or both. Use their description rather than assigning a feeling to the event.

  1. What changed most in your everyday life as you grew older?
  2. Which activities did you carry on with?
  3. Did you begin anything new?
  4. What were your relationships like during these years?
  5. What mattered to you during those years?

7. The most recent years

Give the present its own conversation. This may include changes in how they live or the help they receive. Keep the focus on what they want to say about life now.

Practical wishes may come up. Ask whether they want help acting on one, separately from the story project.

  1. How do you like to spend your time these days?
  2. Who do you enjoy being in touch with?
  3. Is there something you would like people to understand about your life now?
  4. What are you looking forward to, if anything?
  5. Has anything from these conversations changed how you think about the past?

8. Looking across the whole life

Use the final conversation to revisit what the person wants to discuss and decide what happens to the record. They can leave questions unanswered and hold more than one view of an event.

Read back any summary before sharing it. Let the person change their wording or decide to keep a conversation private. If they would like more questions for a future visit, our life story interview questions guide offers a broader selection.

  1. Which parts of your life would you like us to return to today?
  2. Do you notice any connections between the periods we have discussed?
  3. Is there something you see differently after talking about it?
  4. What would you like to add, change, or leave out of the record?
  5. Who, if anyone, would you like to share it with?

When to pause or get help

A memory may bring sadness or regret. Ask whether the person wants to continue, take a break, or stop. Tears alone do not tell you which they prefer. Pause if they become overwhelmed or seem unable to settle, and avoid pressing for more detail.

The National Institute of Mental Health advises seeking professional help for persistent depression symptoms and for trauma-related distress that does not improve or interferes with daily life. If conversations leave someone distressed afterward, or bring recurring frightening memories, speak with a health care professional before continuing.

Take talk of wanting to die or not wanting to be here seriously. Stop the interview and seek urgent help; if there is immediate danger, contact local emergency services and stay with the person while help arrives.

What the research found

In a small trial published in 2018, Sharif and colleagues studied older adults at day centres in Shiraz, Iran. Forty-eight people entered the randomized study; 35 completed it. The intervention involved eight two-hour group sessions led by a researcher, with discussion and written assignments. Quality-of-life scores favored the intervention group at one and three months, but the difference between groups immediately afterward was not statistically significant.

A 1997 study by McDougall, Blixen, and Suen reviewed records from 80 depressed, homebound older adults receiving psychotherapy after psychiatric hospitalization. They had about 13 sessions on average with an advanced practice psychiatric nurse. The researchers found fewer expressions of anxiety, despair, denial, and isolation later in treatment. There was no control group, and care included other nursing support.

These two small studies describe different clinical programs. They offer limited evidence about quality of life and changes during treatment, not proof that eight family conversations improve mental health. Our life story work research guide covers the wider evidence.

Keeping a record

With permission, save recordings with a date and a short description. If you make a written account, ask the person to read it or listen as you read it back. Agree what they want to keep and who can have a copy.

Loristry can help turn life-story conversations into written chapters. For this project, the person should review the resulting account before sharing it.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

It is an organized look back across a person's life, with attention to what experiences mean to them now. Formal methods give the listener a defined process. A family can borrow the idea of regular conversations through different life periods while keeping the purpose personal.

Reminiscence centers on recalling experiences. Life review adds a more deliberate examination of a life as a whole. The terms overlap in research, and either approach may involve individual or group work. Therapy has a defined therapeutic purpose; this guide offers family conversations.

Yes, a willing family member can listen and use these questions. Ask the storyteller whom they would feel comfortable speaking with, especially when the stories involve family relationships. For treatment of depression or trauma, work with a qualified professional.

This family plan suggests eight conversations, roughly a week apart, with 45 to 60 minutes set aside for each. Shorten, skip, or add conversations to suit the person. Formal life review programs use different schedules.

Life review therapy has been studied as a clinical intervention, including with older adults who have depression. That evidence does not establish this family plan as a treatment. Someone with persistent low mood should speak with a health care professional about appropriate care and whether life review might fit.

Keep the audio, write a short account, or use the material for a longer life story. Let the person review anything you prepare and choose who receives it. They may prefer to keep some conversations private.