ABSTRACT
After Jung, and many years before Jaques, the first draft of a definition concerning midlife as the starting point of middle age within the psychoanalytic field, can be found in Erik Erikson. For Levinson, the definition of life cycle includes two aspects. The first one encompasses the idea of process or voyage, from a starting point up to a culmination point. The second aspect is the idea of seasons of life or series of stages within the life cycle, each one qualitatively different from its own distinctive character. The most significant contribution is presented in Cuestionario Mi Envejecer, a survey that works as an instrument to evaluate the subjective attitude with regard to one's own aging. It should be stressed that the researchers are economists who obtained psychological conclusions using variables that would be difficult to transfer to the methodology used by psychoanalysis.
