Margret Baltes, a major researcher in gerontology, challenges the view that dependence is a negative and unnecessary consequence of aging. In this important volume, she presents her theory of learned dependency based on twenty years of research, which holds that dependency plays an important role in successful aging and is a resourceful adaptation to aging losses. This book attempts to correct the bias toward the virtues of independence over the vicissitudes of dependence, a predominantly North American view. It stresses that dependencies are not always dysfunctions, representing loss. Baltes also incorporates European, Japanese and feminist ideas about juxtaposing individuality and connectedness in the mature adult.