Age Crises

AGE CRISES. The development of human personality is not a uniformly proceeding process, but at certain periods is interrupted by rapid shifts, each of which marks the beginning of a new phase of the life cycle; these shifts are called age crises. The most important of them—the pubertal and climacteric—are connected with sexual development and apparently depend on changes in the functioning of the endocrine apparatus. Rossolimo also identifies two childhood crises (at the 2nd year of life and at 7 years) and a senile age crisis. In addition to the general change in the pace or direction of the processes of development of the organism and psychological shifts, each of these periods is characterized by the appearance of new morphological features and a change in the character of movements (as is sometimes said—the type of motor skills), as well as the manifestation in an acute degree of neuropsychic constitutional features. The newborn is a being whose highest motor organ is the pallidum, as a result of which only undifferentiated mass movements are accessible to it; during the first year, other subcortical apparatuses and the cerebellum gradually begin to function. The pyramidal system only begins to operate in the second half of the first year, mainly toward its end. Movements associated with pyramidal pathways begin to develop particularly rapidly during the period when the higher brain centers come into force. This is the period of the first childhood age crisis: it marks the beginning of connected voluntary actions—walking, speech, as well as the development of symbolic movements and memory. Further development proceeds less stormily and more evenly, no longer introducing anything essentially new into the child's motor skills: movements gradually become rounded, and a specific childish grace is acquired.—By 6-7 years, the elementary formation of the motor apparatus ends; a new shift (2nd childhood age crisis) occurs, marking the beginning of the unification into a single whole of the already formed apparatus of emotional-volitional and intellectual life: expression takes on a more meaningful character, movements differentiate, become more precise, and the child's activity acquires a more distinctly purposeful character. Somewhat before this time, according to Freud, the development of childhood sexuality ends, which then recedes somewhat to the background, and thus the subsequent period of childhood development (second childhood) is already characterized by comparative calmness, gradualness, and harmony.—The harmony achieved in second childhood is again disrupted in the period of the onset of puberty, which falls on the 3rd, so-called pubertal age crisis. The main moment of this period should be considered the stormy development of the sexual drive, which from the very beginning acquires a distinctly ambivalent coloring (see Ambivalence), that is, charming with sweet premonitions, then repelling with its baseness. In the absence of opportunities for normal satisfaction, it often finds an outlet in erotic fantasy and masturbation. In this era, the sexual drive, despite the strength of its manifestations, is still not well-defined and is characterized by great polymorphism: homosexual inclinations, sadistic and masochistic tendencies often give it a perverse hue, which later quickly disappears in most. The sexual imprint is undoubtedly often present in the need for adoration that develops in this transitional age, expressed in the desire to create heroes out of chance acquaintances, which seems to stand in sharp contradiction to the simultaneous appearance of notes of hostility and protest toward parents and older family members. It should be added that the awakening desire for independent activity and for the outward expression of a subjectively felt surge of forces in general pushes the adolescent toward negation of authority and toward struggle at all costs. He becomes stubborn, insolent, inclined to contradiction, absurdly self-loving and touchy, and in addition, often pompous and prone to affectation. Emotional life during the pubertal shift is characterized by extreme instability and frequent changes of mood and attitudes, usually of sharply contrasting character: from loving cordiality to angry hostility, from acts of self-sacrifice to manifestations of undisguised egoism, from unbridled gaiety to sullen melancholy, etc. The mood mostly has, however, rather an unpleasant shade and is characterized by undefined anxiety, a feeling of dissatisfaction with oneself and others, and sometimes—by an incomprehensible melancholy that reaches the point of thoughts of suicide. It should also be noted the increased sensitivity, in some passing into sentimentality, and in others masked by intentional roughness, and the easy vulnerability leading to shyness, sometimes hidden under the mask of boldness. The motor apparatus, which in the previous period had acquired a certain completeness, begins to reorganize again: motor skills become more varied, but lose the character of childish grace; the ability to economize and proportion movements is impaired, resulting in angularity, awkwardness: the adolescent often stumbles, bumps into objects, drops things, doesn't know what to do with his hands, etc., his facial expression loses its softness and harmony, and the increased expressiveness of the face sometimes turns into grimacing. The fact that the shift in the activity of the endocrine apparatus, which underlies this age crisis, is probably often accompanied by a violation of the chemical equilibrium of the organism, accounts for the significant increase in the incidence of nervous and mental diseases falling on early youth; it is precisely these years that the first outbreaks of such diseases as schizophrenia and manic-depressive psychosis most often occur; the close kinship of hysterical traits with the manifestations of pubertal psychology led Kretschmer to call hysterics 'adult adolescents'. No less important than the pubertal is the climacteric, or pre-senile (presenile), age crisis, falling on the period between 45 and 50 years. Its basis is the extinction (in women) or weakening (in men) of the function of the sex glands and the general decrease in the vital activity of the body's tissues, the development of sclerotic phenomena marking the beginning of its reverse development. This age crisis in women has a purer character of endocrine shift, manifests itself more sharply and is richer symptomatically (see Climax) than in men, in whom it is, however, to a greater extent colored by the features of arteriosclerosis beginning at this age. From the psychological side, it is characterized, first of all, by a decrease in performance, especially creative productivity, and a decrease in resistance to harmful factors such as alcohol, fatigue, insomnia, psychic trauma, etc. Memory weakens, the brightness of emotions connected in one way or another with the sexual feeling fades; a narrowing of interests becomes noticeable, and characterological features such as egoism, callousness, pettiness, stinginess, suspiciousness, etc., come more clearly to the fore. Irritability appears, the mood becomes fluctuating, changeable, anxious, and easily acquires a depressive coloration. In suspicious people, hypochondriacal concentration of attention on the smallest irregularities in the functions of one's own body often develops. In psychopaths, this age generally often activates the pathological traits of their character, and the tendency to mental illness in it is no less than in the pubertal period (see Psychoses). After some time, the acute phenomena of this age crisis subside, and the slow development of senile features begins, which, however, initially remain barely noticeable. Only significantly later, when the atrophic processes in the brain that cause them become sufficiently widespread and deep (most often after 70 years), these features clearly come to the forefront (senile age crisis), characterized both by a new change in motor skills (a shift toward parkinsonism: movements lose their flexibility, become stiff, slow, the ability to perform different actions simultaneously is lost, tremor develops) and by a significant general decrease in intelligence, accompanied by a loss of emotional liveliness and a sharp weakening of memory, especially for recent events. As a result, the ability to assimilate new ideas and understand the changes taking place in life is finally destroyed. If the senile changes acquire a sharply expressed pathological character, one has to speak of senile dementia (see) and senile psychoses (see).