Analytic Psychotherapy with the Elderly*

For the people of Europe, America symbolizes a New World. The vastness and the emptiness of the American continent seem timeless and without past or future—like the ocean. The old-appearing country and its young-appearing, newly arrived population are a peculiar and perhaps specifically American contrast. The situation is further complicated for the foreigner who is made to feel like a child again because he cannot yet speak the language of the grown-up; neither can he make himself understood. The democratic tradition of America considers human beings as equals and strives for a certain uniformity. This implies, unconsciously, that people are taken as members of one age group. Biological equality is mistaken as another aspect of democracy. This leads to a peculiar attitude of young people to old people in America.

The old mother and the old wise man are subjects of veneration in the old country. They do not seem to exist in the same form in this country, which is the country of the Young, the Beautiful, the Strong and the Healthy. Old people seem to represent the Old Country and a tradition which should have been left behind and which only complicates the adjustment to the new American scene. The elderly react to this by feeling more apologetic than proud. They consider it their duty to keep up with the young as was necessary in the pioneer times of the past. Everybody had to keep moving, and everybody had to keep working. Only recently and by sheer weight of their numbers did the elderly begin to call their existence to the social conscience of the nation. They seem to get tired of leading the life of the “hidden relatives.”

The lost ideal of the old parent, of the old country and tradition, affects the old and young simultaneously. It makes the younger generation feel like orphans who cannot turn for help and advice to their parents because they do not know the new country. The grown-up children lose faith in their p