Midlife Crisis: Are We Doomed To Suffer It?

According to a survey carried out in 1994, 86% of the young people consulted (with an average of 20 years) stated that they believed in the existence of the so-called "crisis of maturity", also known as midlife crisis. It is a concept known for a long time, although it was in 1965 when someone decided to name it.

Specifically, it was the psychoanalyst Elliot Jaques who baptized certain patterns of behavior that he had observed as a crisis of maturity in many artists when they entered the vital stage that goes from 40 to 50 and a few years, something that could be interpreted as a attempt to revive college age, something that went hand in hand with the frustration produced by not experiencing authentic youth.

Today, everything seems to indicate that concern about the midlife crisis is no less widespread. In an age when the reign of appearances has become even more totalizing and when the idealization of youth and the aspectism covers practically all marketing products, much of the forms of artistic expression and even communication politics, being over 40 could almost seem like a crime, and we seem doomed to suffer an extra bit of discomfort going through that phase of the life. But... Is the midlife crisis really widespread?

• Related article: "The 9 stages of human life"

The crises of the 40s and 50s

Within the broad umbrella of possibilities encompassed by a concept as generic as the median crisis age, it is usually distinguished between one that appears around 40 years and another related to ages close to 50s. In both cases there are similar situations.

On the one hand, every time a decade has passed since birth, a threshold is crossed that, although not in all cases it involves a qualitative change in biological development (as occurs with puberty, for example), it has a strong psychological impact. Artificial and socially constructed, but no less real for it.

On the other hand, in middle age there is a greater awareness of one's own mortality, in part due to the signs of physical wear and tear that are beginning to be noticed in the own body, and in part also by elements of the environment, such as the fact that at this stage the expectations of major life changes are greatly reduced and the greatest The novelty that lies ahead is retirement, or the possibility that during those years more loved ones die, such as fathers and mothers or uncles and have to spend for him duel.

Thus, it is easy to imagine that the longing for youth grows, but a priori that does not mean that this is going to happen or that it involves a blow so strong that it can be called a "crisis"; It is only a theoretical, hypothetical explanation of elements that could lead to this psychological phenomenon. Let's go now to what we know about the midlife crisis thanks to empirical testing. To what extent does it exist?

Midlife Crisis: Fact or Myth?

In his excellent book 50 great myths of Popular Psychology, Scott O. Lilienfield, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry Beyerstein offer significant amounts of data according to which this notion catastrophic that most of us will go through a midlife crisis is overblown, though it does have a hint of truth.

For example, in an investigation carried out with a sample of 1,501 married Chinese between 30 and 60 years of age, the psychologist Daniel Shek did not found significant evidence that as they passed through middle age the majority of participants experienced a growth in dissatisfaction.

Regarding people linked to Western culture, the largest study carried out on people in the vital stage of maturity (more than 3,000 interviews), men and women women between 40 and 60 years of age generally showed higher degrees of satisfaction and control of their own life than they had experienced during the previous decade.

In addition, the worry and discomfort generated by the idea of ​​having a midlife crisis were more frequent than the cases in which this phenomenon was actually experienced. Other research has shown that only between 10 and 26% of people over 40 years of age they say they have been through a midlife crisis.

Maturity can also be enjoyed

So why has this phenomenon been so exaggerated? This may be due, in part, to the fact that what is meant by a midlife crisis is something very ambiguous, so that it is easy to use that concept when naming what makes us suffer.

For example, a qualitative leap in consumption patterns, such as starting to travel when you turn 41, can be attributed to the need to live again the adventurous spirit of youth, but it can also be understood, simply, as the fruit of spending years saving during a period in which luxuries were out of reach.

It is also possible that communication problems with adolescents or boredom produced by a work context more stable generate a discomfort that we associate in an abstract way with aging, although technically it has nothing to do with that process.

In any case, everything seems to indicate that in most cases the worst thing about the midlife crisis is its anticipation and the unjustified concern it generates. The maturity it is usually a moment in life that can be enjoyed as much or more than any otherAnd it is not worth creating artificial problems waiting for a crisis that will probably not come.

• You may be interested: "Empty Nest Syndrome: when loneliness takes over the home"

Bibliographic references:

• Brim, O. G. and Kessler, R. C. (2004). How healthy are we? A national study of well-being at midlife. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network of Mental Health and Development. Studies on Successful Midlife Development (R. C. Kessler, Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Lilienfield, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J. and Beyerstein, B. (2011). 50 great myths of popular psychology. Vilassar de Dalt: Buridán Library.

• Shek, D. (1996). Mid-life crysis in Chinese men and women. Journal of Psychology, 130, pp. 109 - 119.