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Growing old is a relatively recent activity in human history; a century ago, people aged forty-five to fifty-five were considered “elderly”. Just since Freud's day, “old” has been extended by more than twenty years, and the age range of people seeking therapy has also expanded. Thus, ageing must, of necessity, interest therapists both personally and professionally.
In 2006, a selection of ten psychoanalytical papers related to ageing and dying, that had previously appeared individually in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, was published as a book, Is It Too Late? It is certainly not too late, even now, for us to re-read these papers, chosen to represent each decade of the journal during its eighty-year history—these are classic papers about ageing, from significant authors.
One can be even more classical than that. In 44 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote a short treatise on old age, entitled Cato Maior de Senectute. He had endured a very difficult period of his life, and was alone and in his sixties. He had divorced his wife, married a much younger woman, then immediately divorced again. His beloved daughter had died, and he had lost his place in Roman politics four years earlier, when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and forced civil war in the Roman Republic. Cicero could not support Caesar and retired to his country estate—an old man, in his own mind useless.
But rather than turning to wine or suicide, as others had done, Cicero decided to write, producing many treatises—on ethics, on religion, on government. Just before Caesar's murder on the Ides of March in 44 BC, Cicero approached the subject of ageing in this small book. In it, he makes ten important points:
A good old age begins in youth (attachment comes to mind.) The qualities that make later years happy and productive are best cultivated from the beginning.
Old age can be very enjoyable, if one has developed good internal resources.
There are appropriate seasons in life. It is useless to cling to yout