With age, we approach ourselves, revealing the essence of our “I” more fully, the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung believed. Jungian analyst Lev Khegai and psychoanalyst Viviane Thibaudier, former head of the Carl Gustav Jung Institute in Paris, reflect on how we age and what we gain over the years.
Psychologies: How did Jung describe aging?
Lev Hegai: He did not purposefully deal with aging processes and developmental psychology. Not because they did not interest him, but because he was primarily a practitioner. He worked with clients and, based on experience, formulated theoretical views. And in those days, psychoanalysis was the lot of people of rather middle age. Old people did not go to consultations, and life expectancy was lower than today. For the same reason, by the way, gerontopsychology, which studies the psyche of older people, began to take shape only in the second half of the 86th century. However, Jung himself lived to the age of XNUMX and was in excellent health.
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Vivian Thibodier: I don’t like the term “aging” at all, it sounds something negative. Jung imagined this process quite differently. His philosophy is to observe what is happening inside our being, our shell. The older we are, the more this shell is destroyed, the more we enter into a relationship with the inner part of ourselves and the more this inner comes into its own, acquires value, comes into action and allows us to take place as a unique person. To describe the life cycle, Jung uses the metaphor of a sun that rises in the morning, then gradually rises to the zenith, where it shines in all its brilliance until it begins to decline, and then disappears below the horizon. There is a moment when the energy rises, the radiance expands and intensifies, then another moment when it all comes down again. The radiance fades until it dimmers, turns into something obviously darker. This is life: we follow the “path of the sun”, in accordance with its phases and its rhythm.
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Okay, then let’s put the question differently: how did Jung imagine the second half of a person’s life?
L.H.: Yes, that’s a better wording. Jung was really talking about two halves of life. During the first stage, we are focused on solving the problems of social adaptation. We fit into society, trying to meet the requirements that life makes of us, in other words, “we want to be like everyone else.”
Does this mean that in the first half of life we form the archetype of a person – that is, the structure of our personality, which, according to Jung, is responsible for what we demonstrate to our environment?
L.H.: Partly yes, but not quite. Jung understood the person rather in a protective sense, believing that it arises as a means of protection, a mask behind which a person hides, feeling danger. Actually, the very word “persona” means exactly the mask used by the actors in the ancient Greek theater. And to say that the whole first half of a person’s life is only concerned with hiding, it would, of course, be wrong. During these years, we strive to find a profession, create a family, and realize ourselves as parents. In a word, to achieve everything that includes the concept of “take place in life.” And in interaction with the outside world, with the tasks that it sets before us, we develop not only a person, but also our “I”.
“Jung believed that the image of a wise old man embodies the ideal of a harmonious second half of life”
Then what changes in the second half of life?
L.H.: The tasks of the social order fade into the background. Everything has already been achieved or at least tried, priorities are beginning to shift to global issues. In any case, ideally this is the case. A person is trying to comprehend what is the mind, what is life, what is its meaning. Moreover, this comprehension does not occur intellectually, but through the experience of one’s own life. In it we look for answers to these questions – and if we’re lucky, we find them. But already in the process of searching, we are approaching ourselves, our inner essence. Jung called this process the process of individuation.
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V.T.: It is best reflected in the image of Christ crucified between two thieves. In this picture, Jesus symbolizes our “I”, torn between two negative figures, which Jung calls the Shadow. The shadow is the boundary between our ordinary personality (“I”) and the awareness that deep down we are something more – the self. This metaphor tells us that our inner transformation is impossible without sacrificing our “I” and recognizing in us that other thing that differs from it and does not coincide with it. Transformation is not comfortable, because any confrontation is experienced by our conscious personality as a threat. Therefore, the conscious personality must die in order to be reborn on a new level, and then we can move from the “I” to the self, which, according to Jung, is the true center of our psyche. This internal transformation is the main story of the second half of life. It is a breakthrough inside oneself, towards wholeness and autonomy. Often this transformation occurs just during periods of existential crises, when “the sun begins to go down.” It is at this point that we tend to look inward, to ask ourselves the real questions: We raised great kids, but what have we done with our talents? We led to a successful end to our careers, but how did our emotional and spiritual life turn out? During these periods we feel crucified in the face of what we face; it’s like a knife piercing our heart. We ask ourselves what is happening to us. We are falling, we no longer know where to run until we can, with luck, find the right path. And when we find it, we still have to come to terms with the fact that this is not necessarily the “normal”, “standard” path, and only then will we become who we are in the very depths of ourselves.
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You talk about finding yourself as an accomplishment, a breakthrough. But old age is usually associated with decrepitude and withering rather than with breakthroughs and internal growth …
V.T.: Of course, if we want to continue doing what we did at 70 at 30, we face huge disappointment. But if we can no longer make, for example, the same long runs as before, then we will either tell ourselves that everything is gone, or, on the contrary, ask ourselves what we could do in return in order to still feel in harmony with with your body. This is the right moment to get to know yourself on a new level, deeper. When we suffer, our inner being thus manifests itself and sends us a message. And then we have two possibilities. Or we do not notice this message, focus on the pain and withdraw into ourselves. Or we perceive this message and try to give meaning to what is happening to us. These are two radically different approaches to how we change with age, to the search for the meaning of these changes and the answer to the question: “What does this tell me about my life situation? What does this say about me today? The fact that we have grown old in no way excuses us when we do not find meaning in what we do and who we are.
“The older we are, the more the inner comes into its own, acquires value and allows us to take place as a unique person”
L.H.: As I said, Jung himself was distinguished by enviable health, and therefore physical decrepitude did not bother him too much. But in general, we can say that the flowering of a person’s spiritual capabilities often coincides with the impoverishment of physical capabilities – it coincides, and is not a consequence. However, a truly wise person is no longer so worried about this impoverishment. Perhaps physical weakness encourages the acquisition of spiritual strength. Jung argued that it was the image of the wise old man that embodies the ideal of a harmonious second half of life.
How can you get closer to your essence?
L.H.: There are hardly universal recipes here. Ways of understanding life experience are largely determined by this experience. But we can confidently say that Jung considered psychoanalysis as one of the ways to know oneself – and therefore to gain wisdom.