Midlife Crisis Research Articles

Empty-nest-related psychosocial stress: Conceptual issues, future directions in economic crisis

Τhe empty-nest syndrome is a transitional stage, when middle-aged parents are in the process of encouraging their children to take up their obligations as adults. The empty-nest syndrome is a psychological condition that affects both parents, who experience feelings of grief, loss, fear, inability, difficulty in adjusting roles, and change of parental relationships, when children leave the parental home. Τhis syndrome has gained special interest in a world where the current economic crisis has not only deepened global poverty but also a crisis of values reflected in the dynamic model of the family. The purpose of this review was to appraise the impact of psychosocial stress of the empty- nest syndrome on the parents' well-being through the years, during the current socio-economic crisis, taking into account gender, national and cultural background, socio-demographic and other context factors. We addressed the phenomenon of the "Boomerang Kids" and crowded nests as a result of current financial instability. Finally, we focused on the strategies which the family can employ to retain their resilience, according to the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping Family resilience framework and self-efficacy models. A literature review was conducted using web-based search engines provided by Medline, Scopus, Embase, Cochrane and PsychINFO. The term "empty nest syndrome'' was combined with women, men, economic crisis, parenthood, stress, menopause, midlife crisis, Boomerang kids, crowded nets, resilience, self-efficacy, wellbeing, and cultural differences. Women and men from diverse cultural groups have a different experience of the empty nest, as well as ways of coping. Distress caused by empty nest results in the incidence of symptoms of depression, behavioral symptoms and cognitive impairment. In most of studies, low marital quality and lack of social support affected negatively on a parent's well-being particularly for those experiencing the return of their "Boomerang kids". However, the financial crisis can transform an empty-nest into a "dynamic nest" by community health promotion services. Social support programs should be designed to strengthen family resource and improve family well-being.

Fighting Back

Fighting Back Speer Morgan Midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. —Dante, The Divine Comedy While temperamentally many of us imagine human lives to be stable, a simple factual recounting of what happens through time proves that they seldom are. Surprises and shocks are in store for most of us. Bruce Feiler's new book Life Is in the Transitions discusses this idea abstractly and by example from detailed interviews of hundreds of individuals. They show that fixed patterns do not work well as life predictors in such areas as jobs, health, and personal commitments. They also suggest that insofar as we need a set of presumptions about our futures, it should allow for and expect transitions—not just small alterations but big changes. I appreciate this idea because it matches my own life experiences and because it is suggested by the radical changes in understanding in most areas of knowledge, from economics and history to the hard sciences. Feiler points out that early worldviews were based on natural and cyclical time, partly because of the prevalence of agriculture in human life. Early mythologies were seasonal, though there were exceptions that admitted to linearity or the unexpected, for example, in classic religious thought and literature. The nineteenth century moved to a worldview [End Page 5] based on mechanical time, which is regular and linear. By the early modern era, the idea of life following a circle had been replaced by a concept of its proceeding through ages or phases or stages that were essentially predictable and fixed. During the nineteenth century, people became time obsessed, and by the end of the century the linear view was the dominant model, especially in sciences such as biology, psychology, and economics, among thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx. Freud believed that all humans were permanently shaped by a series of relatively inevitable psychosexual stages they were expected to pass through between birth and late childhood. Such linear views were espoused as late as the 1970s with Gail Sheehy's best-selling book Passages, describing what she depicted as an inevitable midlife crisis—a theory that she borrowed from preliminary studies by psychologists. This idea of fixed phases of life and a singular dominant midlife crisis, influential for well over a decade, is now seen as largely irrelevant and perhaps one of the last widely believed linear life models. Since then, such views have evolved with changes in the sciences, and human experience is now seen as dynamic, unpredictable, or nonlinear. One of the early widely recognized examples came from meteorology. Edward Lorenz's study of weather prediction hypothesized the butterfly effect, which points out that a tiny influence at some distant and effectively undiscoverable point in a system can cause changes or even extreme irregularity. This was soon recognized to be more broadly true, especially in complex systems such as those of mathematics, cosmology, biology, and water dynamics, as well as weather. The linear model has been replaced by the nonlinear. Everyday events that reshape lives can be disrupters, and they are more common than we may expect. In human life, disrupters can include love, identity, economics, beliefs, work, or the human body. They can occur at any point in life, not just at forty-one (midlife crisis) but at six or seventy-six or just about any age. The average worker today holds twelve different jobs before the age of fifty. People with higher educations can expect to change jobs fifteen times and acquire completely altered skill sets three times. The median number of jobs a person has is thirteen; the number of moves in our lives is around twelve. The number of significant accidents is about three. Many feel that their lives are off course, out of sync, while in fact they are statistically typical. The average number of significant changes, or what Feiler and others call "life quakes," is three to five. These major [End Page 6] changes can be either personal or collective; they can be voluntary or involuntary, and a surprising number of them involve intentionally rejecting a...

Отношение к Богу как отражение ценностно-смыслового содержания религиозности

We studied the current problem of spiritual search of a person during the mid-life crisis. We considered signs of mid-life crisis and signs of intra-personal conflict aggravating it and analyzed personal qualities of respondents in the situation of life difficulties. Based on empirical data obtained from the survey of healthy respondents and persons with disabilities, we revealed the characteristics of respondents' attitude to God, themselves and society. The system of values and social attitudes of a religious person refracts life information through religious experience, correlating it with the system of moral standards and the attitude of a person to God as an ideal. Therefore, the attitude towards religion, faith and God is considered as an attitude determined by the social conditions of a person's life in society. When considering a wide system of relationships, we also investigated the self-wear of a person, determined by the laws of development and functioning of psychological phenomena and processes, including motivational, intellectual-cognitive, emotional-will and communicative-behavioral processes, we determined ways of forming a new self-attitude based on spiritual transformation . We established that the most psychologically stable, stable among all age groups were youth groups and the akme group, in which the individual reached a level of self-realization and self-commitment that was distinguished by a realistic character, a sense of achievement and building prospects. The established relationship to God in these age groups made it possible to note that the work of the soul of persons with disabilities has significant differences from the spiritual search for healthy respondents.

The Relationship between Sense of Mid-Life Crisis , Wisdom, Savoring Belief, Interpersonal Relationship Harmony and Generativity

본 연구는 중년기 위기감, 지혜, 향유신념, 대인관계 조화가 생산성에 미치는 영향을 알아보는데 그 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 서울경기지역, 강원, 충청, 전라, 경상, 제주지역 등 전국에 거주하고 있는 40∼65세 중년기 남성‧여성 600명을 대상으로 임의표집 방식을 이용해 설문조사를 진행한 후, 그 중 불성실하게 응답한 14부를 제외한 566부를 최종 분석하였다. 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 중년기 위기감과 지혜, 향유신념, 대인관계 조화, 생산성의 관계성을 살펴본 결과, 중년기 위기감은 지혜, 향유신념, 대인관계 조화, 생산성과 부적 상관이 있는 것으로 나타났다. 또한, 지혜는 향유신념, 대인관계 조화, 생산성과 정적 상관이 있고, 향유신념은 대인관계 조화, 생산성과 정적 상관이 있으며, 대인관계 조화는 생산성과 정적 상관이 있는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 중년기 위기감과 생산성의 관계에서 지혜, 향유신념, 대인관계 조화의 매개역할을 살펴본 결과, 중년기 위기감은 지혜, 향유신념, 대인관계 조화를 매개로 생산성에 유의한 영향을 주며, 매개효과가 있는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구결과를 통해, 중년기 위기감, 지혜, 향유신념, 대인관계 조화 및 생산성의 관계 특성을 이해하고, 이를 바탕으로 중년기 위기감을 극복하고 생산성을 높일 수 있는 상담 및 교육 프로그램의 개발을 위한 기초자료로 사용되기를 기대한다.

CONCEPTS OF PERIODIZATION OF MUSIC BY SERGEI BORTKIEWICZ: HISTORIOGRAPHY AND NEW APPROACH

Relevance. Despite growing interest in the music of Sergei Bortkiewicz since the beginning of the XXI century, a single, complex and universal system for the periodization of his work has not yet been developed. The systems used today are based either on biographical information (place of residence of the composer) – Berlin, Kharkiv, etc., or on the assessment of changes in the musical language in the early, middle and late periods of creative activity. At the same time, factors of agerelated psychological changes and genre dynamics of creativity are not taken into account.The purpose of the research is the formation of the universal system of periodization of Bortkiewicz’s creativity, which will take into account the whole complex of necessary criteria.The methodology is based on the classification method (dividing the works of the composer according to the criteria defined for periodization) using analytical (research of the works of the composer on the subject of classification criteria), comparative (comparison of works with their subsequent grouping), as well as historical and source study methods (allows to specify the time, place and circumstances of the creation of single compositions).Taking into account the factors of socio-cultural environment, important historical and political events, psychological stages of internal development and the crisis of personality, features of the musical language and the dynamics of genre interests, the following complex periodization of Bortkiewicz’s work is formed:The early period, 1904-1922 (relatively simple musical speech and texture, insignificant genre variation):The first phase, 1904-1913 (complete domination of piano music, the influence of artistic Berlin).The second phase, 1914-1922 (expansion of genre and instrumental interests while preserving the musical thinking characteristic of the early period. The influence of the Ukrainian artistic environment of Kharkiv and Crimea).The middle period, 1922-1942 (complication of musical language, more active appeal to large forms. It comes after the "midlife crisis", as well as the events of the First World War and the revolution in Russia, after emigration to Austria):The first phase, 1922-1934 (the dominance of chamber music and works for solo instrument and orchestra, opera).The second phase, 1934-1942 (after returning from Berlin to Vienna: the peak of the activity of orchestral genres).Late period, 1943-1952 years (reduction of creative activity, rejection of large-scale genres, retrospective moments of creativity: auto-quotations, own poetic text in the vocal piece. It comes after the Second World War and under the influence of the “crisis of old age”).The proposed periodization system is the basis for further research on any aspects of thecomposer’s creative heritage.

On the Question of the Place and Role of Language in the Process of Personality Socialization: Structural-Ontological Sketch

Objective – is to formulate a methodological discourse regarding the place and role of the language interconnected with the process of socialization of a person and develop a systemic idea of the corresponding functional features.
 Materials & Methods – this discourse is formulated on the basis of a systemic idea of the personality socialization, which, in turn, is realized using the structural-ontological method of studying the subject matter field in interdisciplinary researches. This method involves the construction of special visual-graphic matrices that reflect the interaction of the primary process and the material of the studied system.
 Results. The work with the structural-ontological matrix made it possible to analyze the functions of the language in the context of such significant factors of socialization as complex psychodynamics, civilization space and the function of reflection. At the same time, reflection is considered at the level of two plans – primary (reflection-bond) and secondary (reflection-splitting). This made it possible to deduce the idea of the role of language beyond the traditional framework of working with text and analyze the place of the language in the context of activities to establish a connection between individuals, which is realized in a specific cooperative situation (Shchedrovitsky). In particular, the look at language as a specific tool of civilizational rationing, the mechanism of which is provided through reflection-communication. Thus, the language is examined through the prism of its systemic influence on the morphology of the psyche.
 Conclusions – a structural-ontological analysis of the place and role of language in the process of personality socialization has led us to construction of a hypothesis about the phenomenon of language discontentment, as a tendency to distance away ego-consciousness in the process of individuation from linguistic ontology. The arguments were also advanced in favor of the assumption regarding the peculiarities of the influence of language discontentment on cultural activities and the psychodynamic contribution of this phenomenon in the midlife crisis (Jung).

Never waste a mid-life crisis

Creating a better Internet---a global communications infrastructure that is more secure, reliable, performant, flexible, and so on---is one of the grand challenges of our time. Yet, making substantive change to such a large, distributed, operational network is inherently difficult. This position paper argues that the networking research community should come together and adopt a sort of "ambitious pragmatism" that tackles the big problems while identifying the practical steps to take along the way. The community can work together to (i) identify and precisely formulate the main problems we need to address, (ii) more deeply understand a diverse array of practical constraints (including business drivers, economic incentives, government policies, and more), and (iii) create new deployment platforms and institutional structures to enable good research ideas to "cross the chasm" to deployment.

Star studies in mid-life crisis

If the publication of Richard Dyer’s Stars in 1979 marks the beginnings of Star Studies, then what began as a particular branch of Film Studies is now 40 years old. For the glamorous female stars o...

Depression Following Major Life Transitions in Women: A Review and Theory.

Depression can occur due to common major life transitions, such as giving birth, menopause, retirement, empty-nest transition, and midlife crisis. Although some of these transitions are perceived as positive (e.g., giving birth), they may still lead to depression. We conducted a systematic literature review of the factors underlying the occurrence of depression following major life transition in some individuals. This review shows that major common life transitions can cause depression if they are sudden, major, and lead to loss (or change) of life roles (e.g., no longer doing motherly or fatherly chores after children leave family home). Accordingly, we provide a theoretical framework that explains depression caused by transitions in women. One of the most potential therapeutic methods of ameliorating depression associated with life transitions is either helping individuals accept their new roles (e.g., accepting new role as a mother to ameliorate postpartum depression symptoms) or providing them with novel life roles (e.g., volunteering after retirement or children leave family home) may help them overcome their illness.

Effect of Income Gap: Happiness, Cost and Midlife Crisis

Personal happiness, economic and social behavior and organizational behavior are widely concerned. New concepts and tools are defined such as ability income, expected income, expected difference, and income gap. With these new tools, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of common social and economic issues: statistics on the gap between rich and poor, midlife crisis, lifelong learning, layoff, happiness-income paradox, U-shaped curve of happiness, pension systems, seniority-wage system, and so on. The happiness does not depend on the actual income, but mainly depends on expected difference. Income gap increases the cost of the organization.

Identiteit en narratieven in Dit zijn de namen van Tommy Wieringa

Identity and narratives in Dit zijn de namen by Tommy WieringaTommy Wieringa is one of the most prominent contemporary Dutch novelists. The novel These are the Names 2012 depicts, on the one hand, a police commissioner’s need for faith in midlife crisis and, on the other, the journey of a group of refugees in the steppe in search for civilisation and salvation. On the edge of existence and without any point of narrative reference, the refugees kill one of them and then sacralise their act. Using a postmodern paradigm, in particular, the psychoanalytic theories and the theory of the scapegoat mechanism developed by René Girard, this paper attempts to show the connection between the lack of narrative and the birth of the ritual, which is later to become a myth. This underlines the dynamic nature of identity and its dependence on various narratives.

Mid-life microbiota crises: middle age is associated with pervasive neuroimmune alterations that are reversed by targeting the gut microbiome.

Male middle age is a transitional period where many physiological and psychological changes occur leading to cognitive and behavioural alterations, and a deterioration of brain function. However, the mechanisms underpinning such changes are unclear. The gut microbiome has been implicated as a key mediator in the communication between the gut and the brain, and in the regulation of brain homeostasis, including brain immune cell function. Thus, we tested whether targeting the gut microbiome by prebiotic supplementation may alter microglia activation and brain function in ageing. Male young adult (8 weeks) and middle-aged (10 months) C57BL/6 mice received diet enriched with a prebiotic (10% oligofructose-enriched inulin) or control chow for 14 weeks. Prebiotic supplementation differentially altered the gut microbiota profile in young and middle-aged mice with changes correlating with faecal metabolites. Functionally, this translated into a reversal of stress-induced immune priming in middle-aged mice. In addition, a reduction in ageing-induced infiltration of Ly-6Chi monocytes into the brain coupled with a reversal in ageing-related increases in a subset of activated microglia (Ly-6C+) was observed. Taken together, these data highlight a potential pathway by which targeting the gut microbiome with prebiotics can modulate the peripheral immune response and alter neuroinflammation in middle age. Our data highlight a novel strategy for the amelioration of age-related neuroinflammatory pathologies and brain function.

The Linguo-Cultural Concept TORSCHLUSSPANIK as the Representative of Ethno-Specific Psycho-Emotional State of Germans

The given article studies linguo-specificity of the German linguo-cultural concept TORSCHLUSSPANIK that covers a wide semantic space of human psycho-emotional state, which is concentrated around the semantic center “midlife crisis”. The revelation of the semantic content of this concept is conducted by verifying the methodology which is a sequence of research procedures. The scientific reliability of this methodology is ensured by Corpus Linguistics data to empirically reinforce linguistic methods proper. Procedure steps of the given methodology are used to identify cross-language equivalents of the concepts names in the comparative linguo-cultural studies in general, because cross-language equivalence allows studying semantic equivalence within the corresponding conceptual world pictures (CWP) which makes it possible to reveal specific vs. unique senses of the compared concepts.
 The conducted analysis proves that the reproduction of the fragment in the German CWP representing the concept TORSCHLUSSPANIK is possible in Ukrainian only with the help of actualizing sense equivalents of the given concept – FEAR, MIDDLE AGE, AGING, TIME, LIFE and DEATH. This way their symbolic and mythological meanings are specifically actualized. It was determined in the article, that ethno-specificity of the concept TORSCHLUSSPANIK arose due to the particular combination of meanings that represent a wide emotional palette of Germans, for whom psycho-emotional depressive state of “midlife crisis” is reinforced by the emotion of fear. In its turn, the latter is intensified by the emotion of disappointment at being late, not realising smth, failing to do smth etc. It is remarkable that disappointment is usually accompanied by anger, anxiety, guilt, hostility, malevolence, envy, jealousy and shame.

Democracy's mid‐life crisis?

The Political QuarterlyVolume 90, Issue 2 p. 333-334 Book Review Democracy's mid-life crisis? Dick Pountain, Dick PountainSearch for more papers by this author Dick Pountain, Dick PountainSearch for more papers by this author First published: 30 March 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.12676Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume90, Issue2April–June 2019Pages 333-334 RelatedInformation

Mid-life crisis or mid-life gains: 2 years of high-intensity exercise is highly beneficial for the middle-aged heart.

Mid-life crisis or mid-life gains: 2 years of high-intensity exercise is highly beneficial for the middle-aged heart.

Returning to Fellowship for Formal Structural Heart Training After Being in Clinical Practice: Challenges and Advantages

Returning to Fellowship for Formal Structural Heart Training After Being in Clinical Practice: Challenges and Advantages

중년여성의 중년기 위기감이 우울에 미치는 영향 : 자아정체감의 조절효과를 중심으로

중년여성의 중년기 위기감이 우울에 미치는 영향 : 자아정체감의 조절효과를 중심으로

Faculty Mid-Career Crisis and Remedies

Faculty Mid-Career Crisis and Remedies

La vie sauvage des femmes by Bénédicteb Brézillon

Reviewed by: La vie sauvage des femmes by Bénédicteb Brézillon Davida Brautman Brézillon, Bénédicte. La vie sauvage des femmes. Lattès, 2018. ISBN 978-2-7096-6252-9. Pp. 256. Agathe leads a typical and charmed life: She is a successful business woman, is married, the mother of a young girl and boy, whom she takes to various after-school activities. She likes cooking, has a hard-working and understanding husband, and even gets to go to gallery openings. She is pre-menopausal and still has her sense of humor. So, what could go wrong? "Et toi, tu es qui?" (51). This simple sentence uttered transforms her life: "J'ai rencontré un homme. Le jour se lève avec une nouvelle couleur" (59). Agathe's friends are gossiping hypocrites, insecure and jealous, and fearful perfectionists; in other words, similar to our own. Brézillon peppers her novel with a rich and modern vocabulary, from descriptions of Agathe and the people in her life, to where she lives and works. As she is predominantly in publicity and marketing, her references are accurate. We have a protagonist in full mid-life crisis. The author's references to Grey's Anatomy (in full and accurate detail), Ko Samui, and Xanax help this reader to relate to Agathe. Even her visit to the salon to color her hair for her tryst with Julien M. becomes an investigatory experience, skimming the latest magazines for trends and scandals, and what is new in Botox. Girls' night out also offers the reader a view of how these forty-something-year-old women talk of sex, dating, sex, business, sex, flirting, all while drinking champagne and gnawing on various snacks with rich product/logo names. Finally comes the "j'ai trompé mon mari" (155). Life's boring routine is just that. The Xanax, champagne, interludes—nothing can stop time from aging us. Agathe does not see her life through rose-colored glasses. Even shopping for sexy lingerie is sheer torture for her. She does come to the realization that what she has done is futile and lowers her self-worth. To compensate, she decides to help someone less fortunate regain his esteem. Brézillon uses self-deprecation well. Her knowledge of today's market is limitless, but she falls a bit short for this reader. This is a story we have heard so many times. We are all tempted to see what the grass is like on the other side. We question our self-worth as we age. This is a good fluff piece, but there are no new insights. Toward the end of the novel, we do get the feeling that Agathe has begun to understand that chasing the rainbow does not bring us any closer to the pot of gold. She learns that, to truly survive in her couple, she will have to help reinvent it: "Je pleure sur cette vie sauvage que je dompte derrière mes cils et que j'étouffe dans des rêves d'ailleurs" (283). La vie sauvage des femmes is definitely a novel for today's women trying to balance home, work, and their own sense of value, but it is not original. [End Page 226] Davida Brautman Santa Rosa Alliance Française (CA) Copyright © 2019 American Association of Teachers of French

Quo vadishigh-resolution continuum source atomic/molecular absorption spectrometry?

After more than a decade since its commercial introduction, high-resolution continuum source atomic/molecular absorption spectrometry may be facing a mid-life crisis.