You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
THE TOPIC OF INSIGHT IS A WISE CHOICE FOR THE BEGINNING OF A new scientific venture in our field. Insight articulates with all facets of psychoanalysis, including the scientific and philosophical, and has been of pivotal significance from the very beginning of our discipline.
My current research on aging as part of ongoing development has specifically focused on the processes of adaptation to change. As part of my study I have had the opportunity to observe insight attainment, utilization, and concealment in individuals of different adult groups, including the elderly. In the elderly (but also in children and in some middle-aged adults), one can observe repetitive themes in the narratives, stories, and reminiscences communicated to the researcher. In the elderly, these frequently are dismissed as manifestations of senile change or unfounded fantasies. Even if these reminiscences are not of real events, they do have meaning, and this meaning is of significance to our understanding of such aged individuals.
My own experience leads me to conclude that such repetitions may be important to the individual in various ways, e.g., adaptational attempts, relational-communication attempts, self-therapeutic attempts. The recollections or fantasies of the past expressed in reminiscences help the elderly maintain a sense of continuity between past and present and between inside and