Is It Too Late?: Key Papers on Psychoanalysis and Ageing

This book brings together a selection of classic psychoanalytical papers related to ageing, dying and death that have appeared in the renowned International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP). Two papers address the analysis of an elderly patient directly and bring the work and the challenges it brings vividly to life. Also explored are such issues as death and the midlife crisis, loneliness and the ageing process, ageing and psychopathology, fear of death, transference and countertransference issues, and the final stage of the dying process.

'The idea behind this monograph is to alert interested psychoanalysts, students and those working from an interdisciplinary standpoint to the possibility of a better understanding of the ageing process as well as a group of potential analysis that seem to exist in the shadow of our professional communications.

'Each stage of life has its own somatic and psychic normality as well as pathology. Along the course of one's life span, we meet manifold psychic, social and biological challenges. In such times of transition from one phase of development to the next a great variety of adaptive strategies must be developed to deal successfully with new inner and outer conditions.

'...Growing old is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of mankind... In about twenty years, half the population of European countries will be over fifty. Ageing will embrace a period of life that is at least as long as the period of childhood, youth and professional qualification together.

'Living at the same time as one's children, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents harbours manifold conflicts within the family. A prolonged life span has come into existence in which new emphasis is placed on the quality of somatic and psychic integrity. It is the task of psychoanalysis on the one hand to contribute to a better understanding of psychic wellbeing in this phase of life while stimulating more knowledge and truth about the life lived up to now, thus maintaining psychic equilibrium for as long as possible.'
- Gabriele Junkers, from the Editor's Preface

Contributors:
Hanna Segal; Nina Coltart; Pearl King; Harold W. Wylie Jr; Mavis L. Wylie; Tor Bjorn Hagglund; and Erik Hamburger Erikson