Self Psychology and the Aging Self Throughout the Life Curve

It's not that age brings childhood back again,

Age merely shows what children we remain.

As sciences go, psychoanalysis is very young. Hardly 100 years old, it is a youngster among other ancient and venerable pursuits of humankind such as religion, art, and philosophy. It is hardly surprising that not a great deal of attention has been paid by psychoanalysts to the psychology of growing old. I do not think I would have attempted to write an essay on the aging self if the organizer of this conference had not asked me to do so. I have tackled this topic with much reluctance. The domain of old age is a vast territory, full of empty spaces in which only a few oases of knowledge provide a meager intellectual nourishment. My own aging process, may also contribute to my diffidence here, for I might discover aspects of my self that I would greet with much ambivalence. Indeed, as I have begun to peruse the literature on aging I have become impressed by the very quality of conflicted ambivalence with which writers from ancient Athens and Rome to contemporary modernity have reacted to their awareness of growing old.

Among our contemporaries there are those who seem to be full of rage at the losses they have sustained, but in the act of lament they express a secret hope for a cure or perhaps some amelioration. Others assert, almost cheerfully, the freedom to pursue their goals now unencumbered by the ambitions and responsibilities that were their fate in younger years. As a psychoanalyst I read these spirited cries coming out of the dimming light of life's homestretch with a kind of professional distrust that suspects repression, denial, and disavowal of what is not pleasant to acknowledge. But I may be overly eager to judge as defensive what may well be an expression of genuine insight by these people into themselves. Let us, therefore, take a closer analytic look at the phenomena and experiences of old age.