ABSTRACT
The spiritual element which exists at the core of our personalities is to be found at every stage of life, but it stands out strongly at the so-called midlife crisis. The term ‘midlife crisis’ was coined by Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques in 1965, 1 and he meant it to refer to the realisation that, during the middle years of life, we must prepare for death and the acceptance of our mortality. While accepting that the youthful and idealistic dreams of childhood and early adulthood may not be achieved, we must also accept the limitations imposed on our dreams in the time we have left. While Jaques coined the term, it is often attributed to Jung, who worked on the same topic in the 1930s calling it ‘midlife transition’. Jaques, a Freudian psychoanalyst, did not, however, give the midlife crisis the spiritual character that Jung has given it.
