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Joan Ditzion
Joan Ditzion graduated from Simmons College of Social Work and completed a post-graduate fellowship at McLean Hospital. In addition to being an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University for the last 15 years as a clinical geriatric social worker, she has counseled individuals and families, given workshops in the community for adult children of aging parents, and given in-service workshops for professionals who work with aging individuals and families.
As a founder of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective she is very interested in women’s developmental issues through the life cycle. She co-authored all editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves and Ourselves and Our Children, and contributed to Ourselves Growing Older. She is particularly interested in the needs of the adult learner and views the class as a community of learners. The classes are structured to be interactive and participatory, using a variety of methods: lecture, discussion, activities, role plays, and videos.
“The service needs of older adults and their families is my current clinical and educational focus. This is a new field, and there is a need for increased knowledge about the incredible diversity of old people, the range of family situations and intergenerational relationships in people’s lives, care-giving and care-receiving, and the capacity of aging families to adapt and change. In my view, family life cycle developmental theory is a useful framework in working with this population. It enables clinicians to take an intergenerational and contextual view in thinking about problems, to work flexibly with family members, assumes there is a wide range of normative behaviors and a potential for growth and change. I am passionate about the need to provide families and potential or current service-providers information about aging as a unique developmental stage in individual and family life cycles.”
—Courtesy of Lesley University School of Art and Social Sciences
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