Abstract
The process of looking inward and looking backward over time at the life one has lived is a natural and healthful integrative process of aging. Life review and oral reminiscence are sources of heroic myth and legend. In the Odyssey, Demodocus, old and blind like Homer himself, the sacred minstrel/To whom the gods have given power/To gladden us with song, sang or chanted each evening in the great hall before young and old, servant and master, the deeds of those who had lived before.l The epic song served as a kind of communal ritual to pass on the dreams and sorrows of a culture from one generation to the next. But, in addition to serving as a mode of transmission of culture, of providing historical continuity, life review also serves important functions for the individual reviewer. As Florida Scott-Maxwell has said:
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