Talk:Midlife crisis
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[edit] Life half over?
There is some dispute here as to whether midlife crisis actually exists. Assuming it does: The article begins by saying that the trigger is the realization that one's life is half over. This seems doubtful to meet. People have no sense of life being half over. I think people sense the youthful part of their life is over, and they happen to sense that at what is coincidentally the midpoint of their life expectancy so that's label that gets applied.
[edit] No such thing as a mid life crisis????
Currently the article has been edited by someone that just doesnt believe in Mid life crises and is trying to make them out as nothing more then a half baked psuedo psychological buzz word. It calls Mid Life crises a 'notion in certain cultures', a 'popular belief', and says that there is no 'evidence that it exists'.
I am not sure why this person wants to discredit mid life crises. It is somewhat like saying there is no evidence that people get depressed by finacial problems. But some people (and i would guess if we are all honest that all of us) do at a certain point in their life look back at the loss of youth, and must come to grips with their own mortality.
Anyway, the wording should be changed and more refrences to studies in mid life crises should be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.5.88.10 (talk) 17:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Personal experiences
It is related to golden age (menopause in) women or andropause in men.
I dont see why there should be a link to sports car in this page. I can only think that it has been added as humorous reference to sexist stereotypes. I do not think that is adequate for an encyclopedic article and I am deleting it.
I'm at 47, and I don't want a sports car. I want power. I want to leverage my experience and wisdom in some way to hold more power over my life. People look at me and see modest wealth, atrophy, gray hair and ambition adrift. That's from the outside. If they could see inside, they would see youthful ambition and imagination, tempered with two things: the realism of my own limitations, and limitation imposed upon me by the subjective judgement of my peers. My mid-life crisis is my realization of how thoroughly unfair both of these are, and how the effects of these two things imposes more on my life, with each passing day.--64.160.120.212 05:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
The thought of being in a mid life crisis is kind of ironic to me. At 50 years old and struggling at length with major clinical depression that may in fact be the experience of a midlife crisis is almost a relief for me. That's not to say that my depression, anxiety, anger, frustration, insecurity, boredom, spending sprees, et al aren't very disconcerting to say the least, but after going through every medical test that I could imagine, trying traditional and non traditional therapy, psychoactive drugs, etc. all with little positive change, just knowning that what I maybe experiencing something that a lot of other men go through at my age and may eventually pass gives me some hope that I may eventually return to some level of "normalcy" whatever that maybe.
All the links go to the same site. It seems a little unbalanced...
I agree that this page is very unbalanced, to the extent that it is misleading. It also seems to ignore the psychodynamic understanding of midlife that has been around for 50 years. It mentions Jung's idea of 'individuation' but then ignores or rejects the entire Jungian view of what is actually happening within the psyche. It also ignores the Levinson view which has basic similarities with Jung. Both see the midlife transition as the process in which the false identity we adopt during the earlier part of our lives is replaced with our true identity. In that regard, the opening sentence is simply wrong. --Alistair Campbell 06:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm looking here at my entry-level college psychology book (Psychology, 8th ed. by David G. Meyers) and it states that most people do not undergo a mid-life crisis, those who do can attribute it to environmental changes. I'm no Wikipedia editor but I think someone should at least add a section on criticism, or obtain information from more than one source.
I think expanding on Jung to include Myer-Briggs personality types, the approximate age of 40 is when another attribute begins to develop (intuition, sensing, thinking, feeling). The primary function is developed at around age 10, the second at about age 20. The third hits around 40. For an INTJ like myself, that third function is feeling (already having a well-developed intuition and thinking functions). Re-examination of life as the third function is developed seems natural and normal to some extent. How people cope with it is different. Honestly, I'm nearly 41 and I'm not doing too well with it. Some of it is good (like calling my grandparents and letting them know how much I care about them), but I have these insane desires to see other things in life. I tried to START smoking yesterday. I didn't do very well at that... all I felt was dizzy and sick. I've done better with expressing rage - I called three different TV networks (ABC, FOX, and CBS) and gave them a piece of my mind as to their treatment of certain shows (Traveler, Drive, and Pirate Master respectively). I'm probably doing better with flirting as well - I've never been very good at it, but at least now I'm willing to give it a shot.
86.141.180.187 18:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC) It's just the endless tasks associated with being a wife and mother. Tidying, preparing food, shopping, ensuring kids get to school on time, etc etc, of course most people have some of all of these things (and many many more mundane tasks), you have to ask yourself where is that fun person I used to be years ago? 86.141.180.187 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.180.187 (talk) 18:26, August 30, 2007 (UTC)
[edit] In response to--Alistair Campbell 06:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
...the last sentence is simply wrong. According to who, YOU? Wikipedia is simply a "one person's perspective/definition" if you will. The first line in particular was a very simplified definition that helped me to understand what my 50something year old mother may be going through. I, and I'm sure many others, are not looking for the deep meaning of mid-life crisis. From what I understand, you can add to the definition if you feel others need to know that deeper meaning. Just my OPINION, nothing more~C.J. Coleman April 14, 2007
[edit] Still needs work
I've made extensive edits the last two days (August 15-16, 2007) to reflect the current academic thinking about midlife crisis: that it's something that (at most) less than 10% of middle aged adults go through.
There is certainly debate about this. Psychologists and others who study massive surveys like MIDUS find no evidence of widespread midlife crisis. Therapists and other counselors will tell you that they see people going through them. These are not irreconcilable.
What's lacking in the literature -- and I've looked -- are large clinical studies of people going through a midlife crisis. What's out there are either very small samples or completely anecdotal (see Gail Sheehy's "Passages," which popularized midlife crisis thirty years ago). I have not updated the symptoms section with anything from these small group studies -- perhaps on another day.
There could also be more explanation of the findings that people who do suffer a midlife crisis are often people who have had crises at other turning points or stressful periods in their lives. In other words, their psychological issue is more generalized than a "midlife crisis."
Greg y 18:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Cleanup spam tag
Have the problems with spam been addressed? I didn't see any evidence of spam (except a heavy reliance on lifetwo.com as a source). Without understanding the history of this article, I was hesitant to remove it.--Ishi Gustaedr (talk) 12:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
