Lauren Taylor

Lauren Taylor, LCSW, is a psychiatric social worker and oral historian. Since 1994, she has served on staff at the Service Program for Older People (SPOP), a not-for-profit mental health clinic for older adults. She has served as a field advisor and field instructor for Columbia social work students in a range of agencies.

Ms. Taylor gives seminars and workshops on a variety of mental health issues related to the aging process, with a focus on the therapeutic use of narrative. With CSSW, she made an educational film about sexuality and aging, funded by the Hartford Foundation and distributed by the New York Academy of Medicine. Ms. Taylor created a second teaching film, in which she brought together young social work students and older women for a dialogue about the challenges facing women across the life span.

As an oral historian, Ms. Taylor has conducted dozens of life history interviews with older adults, both in the United States and abroad. She studies the subjective experience of aging through the medium of narrative. She is the oral historian for the Emeriti Professors in Columbia institute (EPIC), and recently completed a series of interviews for EPIC on the subject of retirement. Ms. Taylor has lectured and published on the therapeutic use of oral history and life review.