Midlife: The Crisis Reconsidered
by Robert Atkinson, Ph.D.

IT WAS ONCE THOUGHT THAT A PERSON HAD reached the limits of growth upon entering adulthood. According to prominent psychologists at the beginning of this century, life's major struggles and traumas were faced in childhood and adolescence; by the time people became adults, all was pretty much smooth sailing. Adulthood was seen by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and the American psychologist and educator G. Stanley Hall as a 'mature" time.

Though that turn-of-the-century view of adulthood prevailed for a while, it was a narrow one that overlooked the views and experience of many earlier influential thinkers. As far back as the 14th century, for example, Dante described his own midlife situation quite differently in his monumental epic poem, The Divine Comedy. In the opening canto of Inferno, he writes: "I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard it is to tell what that wood was, wild, rugged, harsh; the very thought of it renews the fear! It is so bitter that death is hardly more so." It was not until the 1930s, however, with the pioneering work of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, that the various stages of adulthood were considered worthy of serious study.

By the 1970s the view that all of adulthood was a tranquil and uncomplicated time had been turned completely around. Dante's experience became the metaphor for the middle adult years. Popularized by Gail Sheehy's Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, the phenomenon of the "midlife crisis" burst upon Western society's consciousness. Considering the extent to which the world had changed since the beginning of the century, it seemed quite reasonable that crisis might characterize midlife. Not only were people living longer, thus extending their middle years, but family life and society itself had altered appreciably and had become much more complex.

Today a major new understanding of the middle adult years is emerging, providing a more hopeful picture-one that sees the life cycle as a whole and, most important, that puts "predictable crises" into their proper perspective. This new view recognizes that adults continue to grow and adapt to the various demands and roles of adult life, undergoing major physical and emotional changes in the process. Often they experience a transformation at midlife, becoming reinvigorated and recommitted to living the rest of life more fully.

An all-new scenario
The shift that can occur around midlife is now seen as a normal, healthy, and vital period of personal growth. No longer are the middle adult years viewed only, or primarily, as a time of crisis. Today's enlightened view appreciates middle age as the longest and perhaps most challenging developmental period of all. A considerable body of recent literature explains, among other things, why there are new and shifting commitments at midlife, why menopause is a crucial rite of passage, why there is so-called gender crossover, and why "caring for the soul" becomes important.

Books such as Mark Gerzon's Coming into Our Own: Understanding the Adult Metamorphosis, Cathleen Rountree's Coming into Our Fullness: On Women Turning Forty and On Women Turning 50: Celebrating MidLife Discoveries, Germaine Greer's The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause, Faye Kitchener Cone's Making Sense of Menopause, and many others offer inspiring stories about real people who have found a "new lease on life" upon reaching middle age. While there may still be crises to face, it is now appreciated that a critical component of experiencing a crisis is being able to see it through to a resolution.

A multicultural perspective
In the context of a normal, socially prescribed rite of passage, a "crisis" is the halfway point through a natural process. If one focuses on only one part of a complete and purposeful process, one may miss the intent of the whole. People in traditional cultures accepted that the life cycle comprised stages and that getting through the times of transition was a natural process. They did not fear the middle (i.e., the conflict or crisis) part of the process; they knew that it would lead to a resolution. Moreover, they had clearly defined, socially prescribed rituals that made it possible for them to see their way through each normal transition-without undue strife and in a reasonable period of time.

In fact, because of the central role that storytelling played in their lives, they were quite familiar with the process. Every traditional folktale or myth followed a similar pattern: a protagonist encounters adversity, which he or she must-and does-overcome. People therefore trusted that somehow the conflicts in their own lives would be resolved, that the ogre would be vanquished, or that an ally would be found in the wilderness who would help them see their way out.

It is notable that it was not a psychologist but a French ethnographer and folklorist who first laid the foundation for understanding the complexities of adult development. In The Rites of Passage (1909), Arnold van Gennep systematically described those ceremonies that celebrate an individual's transitions from one status to another within a given culture. 'The life of an individual in any society is a series of passages from one age to another," Gennep wrote. He identified three very basic phases that constitute the scheme of all rites of passage. First, there is separation from the familiar and from the group. Next is a transition, in which the individual acquires new knowledge and new status. Finally, there is incorporation, or a return to the group, where the individual assumes his or her new role and carries out the functions associated with that position.

In the context of such traditional rites of passage, the contemporary midlife crisis can be viewed as an incomplete transition. When the process is allowed to complete itself, it will bring about a redefinition of roles, priorities, and values. Anthropologists have found that in many cultures, reaching middle age does not produce psychological stress and turmoil. The so-called midlife crisis, rather, is a culture-specific phenomenon, found primarily among people in today's technologically advanced Western societies. In fact, it may be Western society's lack of rituals designed to guide people through important transitions that makes midlife such a difficult time. Menopause, for example, tends to be much less problematic-both physically and emotionally-in societies where postmenopausal women become respected elders of their community, gaining power and status that they did not have during their childbearing years. As an example, Mayan women do not report having hot flashes, a menopausal symptom that women in many other cultures find extremely disturbing.

Of course, cultural differences within a pluralistic society can account for important variations in the way individuals experience the middle adult years. In the United States, for example, an adult member of a minority group who has to deal with destructive stereotypes that are perpetuated in everyday life-on television and in literature, movies, advertising, etc-may have an especially difficult time getting through normal midlife changes. Members of certain ethnic groups that maintain close ties to their cultural heritage may experience struggles and challenges that are unique and that complicate the passage through midlife-especially when the values and traditions of that heritage are in conflict with mainstream values. On the other hand, it is also likely that a person from a strong traditional background, who is familiar with the natural pattern described above and whose culture provides rituals for getting through major life transitions, would be better able to cope with midlife difficulties than someone who lacks that familiarity and does not have prescribed rituals.

Over the hill at 40?
In contemporary industrial societies, where the average life span exceeds 75 years, age 40 has typically been considered the great divide between the first half of life and the last half. Even in earlier times, when life spans were much shorter, such a critical halfway-through-life juncture was recognized. Dante, who lived until the ripe "old" age of 56, identified such a midway marker. Jung broke new ground in psychology by comparing midlife to noon in the daily course of the Sun; it is around the "noon" of life, which he saw as beginning between the 35th and 40th years, that a significant change in the human psyche is most likely to take place.

Today 40 no longer seems to hold the symbolic significance that it once had. People often do not feel the impact of having lived half their lives until the mid- or late 40s, or even age 50-if indeed at all. This may be due to what author Lydia Bronte calls the "longevity factor." Not only are people living longer-an average 25 years longer than at the beginning of the century and often into their eighth or ninth decades-but they are also maintaining more productive lives. Extended careers, better health, and increased opportunities have led to richer lives.

In The Longevity Factor: The New Reality of Long Careers and How It Can Lead to Richer Lives, Bronte describes a "second middle age," a time between 50 and 76, which is characterized by continued activity, greater vitality, and a more positive outlook. Bronte conducted interviews with 115 people aged 65 to 102 about their working lives. Over 60% reported that they never retired or planned to retire; nearly half said they reached a peak in their work after age 50; and many had made major achievements after the age of 60. Perhaps the most committed and personally involved student this author has ever had was a 70-year-old woman who had not been a student since she left medical school in her 20s to get married. Exactly 50 years after getting her undergraduate degree, she received her master's degree in adult education and gerontology. Then she decided to get her divinity degree-at age 72!

In many ways, age per se seems irrelevant in contemporary society. In fact, many scientists now maintain that the biological potential of the average healthy adult is about 120 years; midlife would then be closer to age 60. "Aging brings out the flavor of a personality," writes psychotherapist and best-selling author Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Even/day Life. Moore's point is that the "soul," which he describes as "a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves [that] has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance," is not linked to the confines of physical life. Rather, the life of the soul goes on forever.

Biological changes: real but relative
Significant biological and physical changes occur for both women and men at or around midlife. Most people reach a peak in biological functioning at around 28 to 32, after which gradual shifts can begin to be noticed. By their 40s most people are aware that their bodies are slowing down; at the same time, the aging process begins to feel as if it is speeding up. This is often the time that people become aware of "middle-age spread"; they may start worrying about their cholesterol and blood pressure levels; they come to dislike the accumulating gray hairs; and they wonder whether they are remembering as well as they used to. There are, in fact, declines and losses. But the gains may be more important.

For men, though the changes are gradual, after age 40 it probably will take longer and require more breath to get around the bases in a softball game. In lovemaking, reaction time may also be somewhat slower, but staying power is often greater, allowing for a deeper, more intimate relationship. Though gradual drops in male hormone levels between the ages of 48 and 70 have been noted, there is no definitive indication that men undergo any precipitous changes in performance, strength, or inherent "maleness" in the second half of life. Moreover, many scientific questions would need to be resolved before middle-aged men were given testosterone supplements to maintain virility or ward off the aging process.

For women there is the dramatic change called menopause, which signals the cessation of the menstrual cycle and, as a rule, the ability to bear children. With menopause, ovarian estrogen production ceases, which may cause some disturbing physical symptoms. These include hot flashes, nighttime sweating, dryness of the vagina, and painful intercourse. Hormonal changes may also cause mood disturbances and a decline in sexual desire. Long-term effects include increased risk for heart disease and osteoporosis. Hormone replacement therapy can alleviate many of the short-term symptoms and minimize the long-term risks. However, estrogen supplements are not appropriate for all women.

Whereas in previous centuries women may not have lived long enough to go through menopause, today the average woman can expect to live a full 30 or more years beyond it. Unfortunately, menopause in present-day Western society is often perceived negatively. One of the major conclusions of a March 1993 workshop on menopause sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was that menopause tends to be associated with illness and is often "treated" as a medical condition rather than as a normal life transition. This perception affects women's expectations about and probably the way they manage menopause.

Nevertheless, more and more women are discovering that the "change of life" is not something to be dreaded or feared and, furthermore, that the experience tends to be highly individualized. Although there may be discomforts, as there are with all life transitions, one can emerge from the experience feeling healthier, freer, and more confident-a phenomenon that anthropologist Margaret Mead aptly called "postmenopausal zest."

In Drawing from the Women's Well: Reflections on the Life Passage of Menopause, author Joan Borton invokes the traditional rite of passage to explain and honor menopause. She moves it from a passive state that is endured silently and alone to an active state shared with other women- where women consciously engage in changing and in "joining the community of our elders." This transformation is "life giving and thus sacred, connecting us with the Divine," says Borton. There is a great potential for spiritual learning when the choice is made to cooperate with "nature's amazing balancing process." The real change is not just a body event but a soul event, which Borton describes as becoming "one with the Mystery of life itself."

Embracing the experience of menopause rather than viewing it as an illness enables women to address important spiritual and emotional needs. A recent survey of over 500 U.S. women aged 41 to 55 found that the real issues that concerned them as they approached menopause were not physical ones such as hot flashes but matters such as relationships, the "empty-nest syndrome," and career assessment.
 

Indeed, there is more to the second half of life than holding back the tides of time. The acclaimed feminist author Betty Friedan suggests that the key to getting through midlife without crisis is not to look upon aging only as a decline from youth. If people hold that limited view, they "make age itself the problem," she writes in her book The Fountain of Age-published when she was 72. On the basis of her own extensive research, Friedan concludes that decline in various capacities with age is neither universal nor predictable. Those who view old age as yet another stage of potential development instead of as a terminal disease continue to have vitality and be productive and find many new possibilities for growth.

Elder tales: lessons for the second half of life
The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote: "The first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary." Today, owing to the longevity factor, a few more years must be added to the commentary part, but Schopenhauer's premise-that people live the story of their lives in the first half and interpret or embellish those stories in the second half-is worth considering. The ability to see one's life as a comprehensible story may offer a key to prosperity and happiness. That, in fact, is what psychotherapy is all about-telling one's story to someone who can help interpret and make sense of it.

As noted earlier, in many traditional cultures stories have been told for centuries. Handed down and tested over many generations, myths and folktales are rich with human experience and wisdom; they are symbolic expressions of the human journey through life that provide insight and guidance. The French social anthropologist Claude L6vi-Strauss observed that stories are central to people's lives because they offer imaginary resolutions to real-life contradictions.

In most Western cultures storytelling plays an important part in the instruction and entertainment of children. "Fairy tales," however, are not only for children. "Real life does not end with youth or eternal happiness," points out psychiatrist Allan B. Chinen, who has compiled and interpreted 'elder tales" from many cultures. His books Once upon a Midlife: Classic Stories and Mythic Tales to Illuminate the Middle Years and In the Ever After: Fair, Tales and the Second Half of Life offer traditional stories in which the protagonists are grown-ups and the lessons are "adult" ones. These elder tales are about the struggles, yearnings, and dilemmas of ordinary people in the second half of life. They warn of the difficulties that advancing years may bring but, more important, they preview the "promise and potential" still to come. Consider one example, "Fortune and the Woodcutter," an elder tale from Asia Minor, as Chinen retells it:

Once upon a time, there lived an old woodcutter with his wife. He labored each day in the forest, from dawn to dusk, cutting wood to sell in the village. But no matter how hard he struggled, he could not succeed in life, and what he earned in the day, he and his family ate up at night...

After twenty years, the old man finally had enough. "I've worked for Fortune all my life," he exclaimed to his wife, "and she has given us little enough for it. From now on," the old man swore, "if Fortune wants to give us anything, she will have to come looking for me." And the woodcutter vowed to work no more.

... In fact, he decided to stay in bed.

Later that day, a stranger came knocking at the door and asked if he~ could borrow the old man's mules.... The stranger explained that he had some work to do in the forest, and that he noticed the woodcutter was not using his mules. The old man agreed....

The stranger then took the mules deep into the forest. He was no ordinary man, but a magician, and through his arts, he had learned where a great treasure lay. So he went to the spot and dug up heaps of gold and jewels, loading the booty on the two mules. But just as he prepared to leave, gloating over his new wealth, soldiers came marching down the road. The stranger became frightened. He... fled into the forest and was never seen or heard from again.

The soldiers went along their way, noticing nothing unusual, and so the two mules waited undisturbed in the forest. After many hours, they started for home on their own, following the trails they had used with the woodcutter for many years.

When they arrived at the woodcutter's home, his wife. . . ran to the mules and slashed the bags on their backs to lighten the load. Gold and jewels poured out, flashing in the sun.

"Gold! Jewels!" she exclaimed. In a flash, her husband was downstairs, and he stared in astonishment at the treasure spilling into their yard. Then he grabbed his wife and they danced deliriously. "Fortune did come to us after all!" he exulted.

And when the old man and his wife gave half their treasure to their sons and half the remainder to the poor, they were still as rich as rich could be!

What this elder tale is really about is the loss and the return of magic. For the woodcutter the hope and vigor of youth are gone, but when he least expects it, "magic" in the form of riches comes to him. Late in life he reaps his reward-the wealth gained for having worked long and hard in his younger years. The woodcutter's fortune is indeed a return on his investment. The elder's task, Chinen points out, is to be open to unexpected magic. "All too often adults dismiss the possibility of 'happy endings' in later life, and resign themselves to a slow decline."

Realizing the value of stories, middle-aged adults today are increasingly sharing their tales-in books, in formal workshops, and in informal support groups. Women, in particular, are joining together to dispel long-held myths and misconceptions about menopause; they are learning that life is not all downhill after age 40-that the "change of life" can signal a time of newfound freedom and blossoming.

Indeed, there is a power in the stories of others that helps people make sense of their own lives. Others' stories reveal the ways in which real people have endured deep change in their lives, drawing upon hidden inner resources. Such stories both inspire and invite introspection and help people realize their own inner strengths and potential to change and be renewed.

At the recent NIH workshop, women-to-women exchanges were cited as a key source of information about menopause. Women need to validate their own experiences, and other women are often seen as more credible sources than doctors because the issues of greatest concern to them are psychosocial rather than medical. Rountree, who has been leading workshops for women in their 40s and SOs for several years, has found that "women are comforted to hear the stories of other women and grateful to see how those women have changed their lives. Living examples remain the best source of inspiration."

Not a crisis after all
More and more people are discovering that midlife is not necessarily a time of crisis. Rather, it is a time of quest. Midlife can signal a quest for wholeness, a quest for integrity, a quest for love, a quest for independence as well as interdependence, or a quest for the "sacred." It can be a time for the healing of old "wounds" or for finding one's true calling.

Quest for wholeness. For many the midlife quest is for wholeness. Jung believed that in the second half of life people begin to discover and express qualities in themselves that were underdeveloped or neglected in the first half, and in doing so they achieve wholeness and balance. Gerzon compares the metamorphosis that occurs around midlife to that of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. No one reaches the second half of life whole; everyone has been injured physically, psychologically, or spiritually, though some people may not be aware of those wounds. Those who do not resist or deny change will find that a new "self" is waiting to emerge.

Quest for love. Another common midlife quest is for love. There are often reevaluations of relationships and a search for deeper intimacy. Men and women may seek to free themselves from sex-role limitations and allow both the "masculine" and "feminine" in themselves to merge. In this quest for love, people search for "soul mates" who can be partners on a spiritual journey.

Finding one's calling. Today, with the average career spanning five or more decades, it is rare for most people to know what kind of work will satisfy them when they take their first job. Eventually, many begin looking for something that is more creative and fulfilling. Because people need to express themselves in their work, they begin to listen to their own inner voices to guide them to their "true calling." Success in the second half does not always look the same as it did in the first. External achievements may no longer be primary. Many people become more attuned to internal feelings and recognize a desire to be of service to others. The midlife challenge becomes one of following their own dreams, and a midlife career change may provide the path to transformation.

A recent issue of Fortune magazine profiled middle-aged men and women in widely varied jobs who "beat" their midlife career crises and found new paths to job satisfaction and personal growth. A 38-year-old former banker took a huge cut in salary in order to join the staff of a major metropolitan newspaper as an editorial writer. What he lost in pay he gained in personal fulfillment. A 43-year-old executive at General Motors gave up her supervisory position to become a truck designer for the same company. An equal opportunity officer in Alabama was tired of paperwork, so he joined a construction crew for six months. He said he wanted to build "something tangible, like a bridge"-something he would be able to show his grandchildren.

Quest for the sacred. One of the most universal midlife needs is to overcome spiritual passivity-to begin "caring for the soul." Usually this means bringing some kind of regular discipline into one's daily life. "Taking an interest in one's own soul requires a certain amount of space for reflection and appreciation," says Moore in Care of the Soul. "A little distance" enables people to understand and cherish their own complexity. For some, discovering new meaning and purpose in life may come through achieving union with a "higher power"; for others, the quest involves cultivating what Moore calls "an appreciation for vernacular spirituality," which enables them "to see the sacred dimension of everyday life."

Indeed, midlife is much more than a time of crisis. It is in the second half of life that people discover what is personally sacred-what matters to them most in this life and beyond. Learning what that is may be the greatest midlife challenge of all.