Since 1982 I have been observing health-care
professionals, including social workers, interact
with elderly residents in a syrupy and infantile
manner. As a supervisor I never felt comfortable
with this type of interaction—but at the time—I
did not have the skills to wrap coherent words
around the behavior. As a doctoral student and a
practicing social worker I made a Herculean effort
to conceptualize the interaction within a theoretical
framework. I thought that if I had a theory I
would have the effective words to modify the
interaction I was observing in nursing homes.