A Senior as an Individual in the Situation of Dementia. Tom Kitwood's Person-Centred Care Model and the Philosophy of Dialogue

• Main Author: Agnieszka Smrokowska-Reichmann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lodz University Press 2020-06-01
• Series: Nauki o Wychowaniu
• Subjects: dementia; personhood; subjectivity; dialogue; relationship
• Online Access: https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/wychow/article/view/7933

Seniors suffering from dementia are always exposed to a reductive approach and depersonalization due to the specificity of that disease. The subjectivity of a senior is neglected or even completely negated. What remains unnoticed is the fact that, despite their disease, a senior is still a person – with the rights and needs of a person – and not just a helpless patient. The paper presents a break that has been made in the understanding and care of seniors with dementia thanks to the work of Tom Kitwood, a British psychologist. In Kitwood’s Person-Centred Care model, a person is defined as a relational, feeling, and historical being. At the same time, being a person is only possible in the interpersonal context. Hence the author's suggestion to read Kitwood’s concept from the angle of the philosophy of dialogue, which is always an affirmation of subjectivity and an opposition to tendencies that reify human beings. In the author’s opinion, Kitwood translated the main postulates of the philosophy of dialogue into the language of psychology, gerontology and senior care by operationalizing the indicators of the well-being of a patient with dementia.