L’efficacité de méthodes psychothérapeutiques chez la personne âgée interroge nombre de praticiens et de chercheurs, et ce tant dans un contexte de prise en charge de troubles psychopathologiques que de préparation à sa propre finitude. Ainsi, l’objectif de cette recherche était d’éprouver les bénéfices de la rétrospective de vie auprès des personnes âgées, comme méthode psychothérapeutique particulièrement adaptée à cette population. À cet égard, une intervention randomisée et contrôlée fut entreprise (n=11 dans le groupe intervention et n=15 dans le groupe témoin). Les résultats ont révélé un effet significatif de l’interaction « groupe×temps » sur l’humeur dépressive indiquant que les scores de dépression du groupe ayant bénéficié de l’intervention en rétrospective de vie étaient significativement plus bas que ceux du groupe témoin. En revanche, aucune amélioration n’avait été constatée concernant les indicateurs du bien-être psychologique, à savoir, la satisfaction de vie, l’équilibre affectif, l’estime de soi, l’anxiété face à la mort et l’intégrité de soi. Ces résultats sont conformes à ceux déjà obtenus dans la littérature scientifique portant sur les effets de ce type de psychothérapies. Cependant, il demeure la nécessité de poursuivre les investigations pour asseoir leur pertinence et leur légitimité.

The effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions for elderly persons questioned number of researchers and practitioners, both in the context of treatment of mental disorders and preparation and acceptance of death. Since the seminal work of Butler in 1963 on the role of the reminiscence on successful aging, life review therapy becomes a very popular tool in the modern psychogerontology. The growing interest in the reminiscence is due to the universality of the mental activity of reminiscing. Indeed, as a natural phenomenon for all individual, reminiscence involves recollecting and remembering events personally experienced in the past. Reminiscence activities are often used spontaneously to share memories. The functions of the reminiscence are now well known and well documented. However, life review, besides the fact that it also refers to the evocation of personal past events, involves the analysis of these personal memorabilia. It is rather a dynamic process of looking back at one's life and reinterpretation of one's existence. It allows older people to assign value and meaning to one's life. Thus life review needs the presence of a therapist. Although, research on the uses of the life review among the elderly reveals its important potential for the promotion of the psychological adjustment (e.g., subjective well being, mood, ego integrity), additional studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of this psychotherapeutic function and its universality. The objective of this research was to evaluate the efficacy of the life review on depression and psychological well-being in the elderly by conducting a randomized controlled trial. Thus, 13 voluntary participants were randomly assigned to the life review group (n=15) and the control group (n=15, mean age=83.47, S.D.=7.57). However, only 11 participants completed the whole life review program (n=11, mean age=79.27, S.D.=13.67). The inclusion criterion was participants with a score equal or above 24 in the Mini-Mental State (MMSE). The two groups were similar with regard to the age, educational level and mini-mental state scores. The life review program consisted of sixteen 90-minute sessions. All the five senses were stimulated by different materials to facilitate the emergence of autobiographical memories. Also, we used La Fontaine's Fables to stimulate remembrance. All life cycle stages were covered. Measurement instruments used in pre-program and post-program included the Geriatric Depression Scale (it is a 15-item scale), the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (it is a 10-item scale), The Death Anxiety Scale (it is a 5-item scale), the Ego Integrity Scale (it is a 10-item scale), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (it is a 5-item scale) and the Affect Balance Scale (it is a 10-item scale). Repeated measures analysis of variance (along with power analyses) revealed significant difference between the two groups in the change in scores for depression indicating that those in the intervention group had profited from the life review activities. On the other hand, no differences were found in the changes in scores for life satisfaction, self-esteem, death anxiety, ego integrity, and affect balance. These findings are in line with previous randomized, controlled studies evaluating the effectiveness of life review therapy. However, the modest sample size in the present study may have played a role in limiting the significance of some of the statistical comparisons performed. Thus, further research is needed to assess its long-term effects.