Mid-Life--a Time of Crisis Or New Possibilities‪?‬

Psychodynamic view According to the psychodynamic view, the major psychological changes occur during childhood. More specifically, as Freud postulated, all three stages of psychosexual development are completed in early childhood. Therefore, the argument follows, any crisis occurring in middle life is caused by the 'disorders of ego' related to the developmental experiences in childhood. Thus those suffering from psychogenic neurosis, caused by the conflict of different drives and/or clashes between parts of the psyche developed in childhood, should be treated in psychoanalysis by visiting and resolving those early experiences. The end-goal of all activity throughout life is the re-establishment of individual equilibrium which has been disordered in childhood (Wood et al. 2002). Adulthood, according to Freud, is the 'product' of childhood, an end point rather than a stage for change in its own right. Freud wrote in 1907 that 'about the age of 50 the elasticity of the mental processes on which treatment depends is, as a rule, lacking. Old people are no longer educable' (as cited in Cohen, 2006, p.1). Freud, as Cohen noted, was 51 when he wrote this and a great deal of his work was completed after his 65th birthday.