Intimacy and Later life: CABS Online Seminar Series 2024/25

The Centre for Ageing and Biographical Studies (CABS) at the Open University (UK) is delighted to return with its online public seminar series programme for 2024-25.

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Event description

That intimacy and intimate relationships matter regardless of age is something which is only beginning to be recognised, actively researched and indeed, discussed in relation to growing older.

Join us to hear from Dr Diana Teggi (University of Bath) , Dr Jessica Carr (The Open University) and Dr Torbjörn Bildtgård (Uppsala and Stockholm Universities, Sweden) who will share findings from their research, conducted in the UK and Sweden, with older people and health and social care practitioners.

The significance of intimacy in later life: findings from a recent qualitative enquiry (Dr Diana Teggi and Dr Jessica Carr)

As people grow older, moments of intimacy, of emotional and physical affection, are just as important as ever — but they can also be more fleeting and unreliable: partners die, couples separate, and friendships can fall away. Conversely, some people find increased intimacy with partners, family and close friends in later life. Join us for this seminar presenting results from a recent study of intimacy in later life, led by OU researchers as one of the Open Societal Challenges projects. You will hear from Dr Diana Teggi and Dr Jessica Carr about findings from our surveys and interviews with people aged 65+ and also with health and social care practitioners who work with older people. One of the project's aims is to improve the support offered to older people who are experiencing challenges with intimacy and we will therefore also discuss the implications of our findings for people working with older people, including counsellors and therapists.  

Intimacy and ageing – results from three Swedish studies (Dr Torbjörn Bildtgård)

Generational replacement, normative shift and the extension of the average healthy life span have all contributed to changes in the intimate lives of older people.  In Sweden it has become increasingly common both to separate and to repartner in later life. In this presentation I will use data from three Swedish projects on late life intimacy, carried out together with Professor Peter Öberg, that resulted in the book "Intimacy and ageing" (Policy press). I will discuss the experiences of older Swedes who have either divorced or repartnered late in life, focusing on their motives for dissolving and/or entering unions in later life and how later life turned out. In the presentation I will relate the findings to Laura Carstensen's Socioemotional selection theory and Peter Laslett's theory about the third age. It is suggested that both an "awareness of finality" and the cultural context of the "third age" are central concepts for understanding late life partnership choices.

If you require any further information, please email Manik Deepak-Gopinath (manik.deepak-gopinath@open.ac.uk) or email Verina Waights (verina.waights@open.ac.uk).