Counseling psychology has neglected elderly adults. Developmental transitions from gainful employment to retirement or from active parenthood to former parenthood can be difficult. For older adults, religion can be a useful means for organizing the self-concept and developing a context of meaning for one's life in an effective way. Religion can contribute a framework for understanding one's life pattern and present situation. Religion entails a set of goals toward which the elderly person can continue to move and from which he or she can derive hope. Religion provides a supportive social network through a sense of shared beliefs which can aid an elderly person in combating isolation and loneliness. The psychological frameworks of Erik Erikson's developmental stages, Ezra Stotland's psychology of hope, and the recent view of integration of cognitive, social, and psychological factors provide an approach to understanding the role of religion for the elderly adult. A research approach investigating the antecedent relation of religion and related variables to patterns of coping in the elderly is needed. (ABL)