Agir;g is an evolution into human wisdom By Julia Gargiulo Enk Erikson, one of America's most renowned psychoanalysts, himself now 85 years ofage, has some profound things to tell us about how to age gracefully no small task in a culture as youth-ob sessed as ours. His eight stages of psycho logical life, culminating as they do in that of "old age," is a primer for a life lived with meaning and, ultimately, with wis dom. The meaning flows from the insight that man is a creature in community, who only truly knows himself in interraction with others; and wisdom arrives when one fully understands that at its deepest levels. A brief look at the earliest stage in Erikson's life cycle, that of infancy, .will help us to better understand the last two stages which relate to aging. In the first stage of infancy, as in all the eight stages, the growing organism is pre sented with a task or crisis which relates to its particular strengths or weaknesses. From birth to about 1'/2 years of age, the infant takes the world in orally, as it were; and obviously, it depends for its life on the mothering figure who is caring for it. Its strengths are its great powers of incor poration and its ability to absorb its en vironment; its weakness is its total dependency. Depending on how the in fant is cared for - whether the care is consistent, reliable, and loving - the in fant will come to develop an attitude of hopefulness towards the world or, in the case of erratic or withholding care, one of withdrawal from the world. These two attitudes are described by Erikson as the first crisis a human en counters, that of "trust v. mistrust." No infant emerges from the first crisis oftrust or mistrust in an absolute way; rather, we each emerge from the experience of the first year and a half oflife with a particu lar mix of both. Erikson's point is that the psychosex ual organism first studied and described by Freud has an added component af fecting its growth which is best described as psychosocial. The infant interracting --_ .. - Green"vich TIme BOARD OF CONTRIBUT(1RS with its caretaker (later its family, friends, and society) is, for Erikson, a more fertile ground for studying how the human mind develops. Similarly, in the seventh stage, that of adulthood (approximately from 30-65 years), the crisis reflects Erikson's belief that psychological health or pathology de pends on how one relates to the world outside oneself. The developmental stage brings to the fore the crisis of "generati vity v. stagnation" and the basic strength characteristic of this stage is "care." Just as the infant incorporated the world as its primary mode ofbeing, the adult's is to be generative, productive, creative. Ob viously, adults are procreative, and from 30 to 65 years they are usually involved in caring for their children, but they may also be caring for the ideas, the art, the works of hand which they have produced, or they may be caring for other people's children (the children of the world). The underlying preoccupation, here, is to ad vance life, the life which has been given us to care for.' . The antipathetic pull, in this stage, is towards stagnation, and the core patholo gy is "rejectivity." Stagnation in adult hood can mean seW·absorption, or treating oneself as if one is one's only child so ~hat another's pain is never seen. Or it can mean, also, an obsessive need for pseudo-intimacy in a regression to the earlier stage of young adulthood. "Rejec tivity" means a refusal to include particu lar persons or groups in one's area of concern, so that one does not care to care for them. The eighth and final stage (65 years and onwards) involves the psychosocial crisis of "integrity v. despair." and the basic strength to be achieved is "',sdom. . , ::"., . • • Integrity i'mplies a wholeness, a coming together of all the parts of one's life. It is an emotional acceptance of one's per sonal life. It is not a denial of the pain or the tragic in one's life, but an awareness that all Iives are touched by some ofboth. Erikson dei(tnes wisdom as "the detached concern wii'h life itself in the face ofdeath itself." AD of life, not just my life, is my concern, according to this view, even as I am dying. I am a part of humanity and I am open to life, even as mine closes. Wis dom, Erikson continues "responds to the needs of the oncoming generation for an integrated heritage and yet remains aware of the relativity of all knowledge." This allows for inter.generationai understand ing, rather than conflict. . The opposite of integrity is despair, and the core pathology of the eighth stage is "disdain." Despair says that human ac tions have no meaning, that I have noth ing of value to give to others, that my experiences have had no worthwhile ef fect on me. Just as wisdom unites us to others in a common humanity, despair wars with human connectedness, and dis dain is its legacy. Disdain implies a dis gust with the human experiment, with others who have suffered. and ultimately with the self that is not understood. Erikson's final stages return us, full cir cle, to his first: a trusting, hopeful child .. can become a caring, wise elder. In both cases, the eye is turned outwards, away from the self. The attitude is one ofopen- : ness and optimism. The integrated, wise ' . elder who continues to give to life by his involvement with all living things is, thus, less afraid of death. Such an elder is, ulti mately, a model for the next generation for, as Erikson observes in conclusion, "healthy children wiD not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death." Julia Gargiulo. who lives in Greenwich. is a psychotherapist and social worker. .. • Greenwich Time. Sunday, May 17.1987 I·
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