ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the author's work with a client who spoke to him openly about some challenges of aging. It considers some insights about the transition into old age discussed by Lionel Corbett. Corbett describes how an internal union of opposites may occur in later life, especially a psychological integration of male and female. She also explores how the archetype of androgyny is activated, and how the ego-self axis can be strengthened. Elaine, eighty-two years old, had experienced periods of depression throughout her life. She was a poet who had read her work publicly but hadn't been widely published, and she was sad because she felt her writing career never went anywhere. Elaine's story illustrates what dream researcher Rosalind Cartwright has described as "the mood regulatory function of dreams", which states that "dreaming modulates disturbances in emotion, regulating those that are troublesome". The chapter demonstrates the process of emotional regulation.
