MIDLIFE: Humanity's Secret Weapon

By Andrew Jamieson

Only two species of mammal have a post-reproductive life that lasts longer than their reproductive life: the killer whale, whose elders are able to sniff out food supplies over vast oceanic distances to keep their pods fed, and Homo sapiens. While the evolutionary purpose of the killer whale's extensive life seems clear, what is the point of ours?

This was a question that intrigued psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who observed that if a culture is to maintain its deepest, profoundest roots while moving forward to embrace the challenges of historical and technological change, it needs to find an equilibrium between the energy, vigour and creativity of those in the ego-driven first half of life and the experience, dignity and wisdom of those in the second. But to make it to that second half of life, we need to traverse the dreaded 'middle years', when so many of us find ourselves discontent with our jobs, unhappy in our relationships and lamenting our fetishized youths.

Drawing on history, psychology, science and literature, Jamieson shows just how ubiquitous, and crucial, the 'midlife crisis' is, and the devastating consequences for society at large if we continue to regard it as something we can, and should, avoid.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notting Hill Editions
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781912559398

Andrew Jamieson

Andrew Jamieson trained at the Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling and received an MA in Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy at Middlesex University. He lectures and writes articles on a series of subjects including psychotherapy’s interconnection with philosophy music and literature. Parallel to his psychotherapeutic career, he has promoted orchestral concerts throughout the UK for over forty years.

Book preview

MIDLIFE

Humanity’s Secret Weapon

–

Andrew Jamieson

To Julia, Anna, Lucy and Olivia

Contents

– Title Page –

– Dedication –

– Introduction –

– Eldership, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Jung’s Breakdown –

– Freud’s Repetition Theory and Jung’s Concept of Individuation –

– The Mother and the Amygdala –

– The Eye of the Storm –

– The Shadow: A Powerful but Turbulent Ally –

– Two American Presidents –

– Marie Curie: The Sister of Prometheus –

– Crisis, Creativity and the Work of Heinz Kohut –

– Synchronicity and the Gravitational Field of Authentic Need –

– Conclusion –

– Acknowledgements –

– Other titles from Notting Hill Editions –

– About the Author –

– Copyright –

1

– Introduction –

Since I began practising as a psychotherapist, three quarters of my clients have been between the age of thirty-five and fifty-five. They invariably arrive for their first session in a state of depression, anxiety and uncertainty, often unsure whether to give up a profession or a marriage. In this state of near breakdown, they feel overwhelmed by some insoluble, intractable problem. As I have traversed this challenging emotional rockface with client after client I am, time and again, impressed by how these periods of inner turmoil provide us with an unmatched opportunity to review our lives and explore our personalities. We can then attempt to adapt and reshape those aspects of our nature which constrict our development, that hold back our true potential and impede our sense of well-being.

This rite of passage that we have come to call ‘the midlife crisis’ has an ancient provenance. Indeed, it is the subject of the second story ever told in the earliest stirrings of Western culture. Homer’s Odyssey recounts Odysseus’s journey home to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan Wars. As the gods test his resolve, Odysseus is beset by a multitude of calamities and 2temptations that – during the course of his long voyage home – transform him from a youthful warrior into a wise and enlightened elder.

Several thousand years later another sacred text recounts a similar rite of passage undertaken by Dante Alighieri whose Divine Comedy begins with its famous opening sentence: ‘Midway through this life upon which we are bound, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone.’ This epic story describes Dante’s journey through the Inferno, Purgatory and finally into Paradise, in the company of his guide and mentor Virgil and then his muse Beatrice.

These confrontations with inner demons and outer misfortune experienced by Odysseus and Dante have numerous parallels in Western religious texts and literature. They appear in the Old Testament stories of Jonah and Job, in Christ’s forty days and nights in the wilderness, in St John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul, in Goethe’s drama Faust, in Tolstoy’s accounts of Levin and Pierre’s tribulations and in Eliot’s East Coker. The sense that inner wisdom or a feeling of enlightenment and psychological repose can only be achieved through a crisis, an ordeal or a long hazardous journey is a belief that runs through the entire tradition of Western literature, mythology and spirituality.

As with Odysseus and Dante – and as with the heroes and protagonists of Goethe, Tolstoy and Eliot – 3many of my clients who experience this ordeal meet the challenge and undergo some form of transformation. As they recover they begin a new phase of life, having resolved their central difficulties and having made the necessary adaptions to their lives, having released once dormant potentialities. The midlife crisis is invariably a unique opportunity to grow and develop our personalities in a direction that will give our lives a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, a greater sense of fulfilment and a less troubled, richer engagement with our own true natures and the world around us.

A hundred years ago Freud and Jung produced two works that were to have an immeasurable impact upon the theory and clinical practice of psychotherapy. In 1920 Freud published Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which gave a comprehensive account of his repetition theory, while in the same year Jung was writing Psychological Types, in which he described for the first time his concept of ‘individuation’. These thoughts on the psychology of midlife have running through them continual references to these two theories which stand as cornerstones of the psychoanalytic revolution, two different models of the human psyche and two contrasting approaches to the practice of psychotherapy. Both, however, shed light on why this psychological rite of passage not only appears to be a necessary experience in our emotional development but also the role of the midlife crisis as a significant part of our evolution as a species.

4There are perhaps three evolutionary processes that sculpt humanity’s development – biological, technical and ethical evolution. Biological and technological evolution are both accepted mechanisms of human development, but I would argue that ethical evolution provides a third tier to humanity’s progress which becomes essential if we are to control our species’ technical advance, which if left unrestrained will put our existence at risk.

If our ethical progress does not keep up with our technological progress, the planet and our species will be placed under perpetual threat. Our midlife experience therefore is crucial in providing our species with the wisdom, compassion and altruism necessary to guide humanity safely through the challenges that lie ahead.

5

– Eldership, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Jung’s Breakdown –

Only two species of mammal have a post-reproductive life that lasts longer than their reproductive life. The first of these is the killer whale, or Orca. Pods of these whales are often led by very old females whose long experience and deep intuitive knowledge allow them to search out the rich grounds of food necessary to keep the pods well fed. The other species of mammal is Homo sapiens.

While the evolutionary purpose of the killer whale’s many years of extended life so far beyond their reproductive years seems clear, what of the Orca’s human equivalent? One of the very few psychologists who has questioned why human life extends so far beyond the child-rearing years was Carl Jung.

Jung found an answer in the observation of primitive tribal cultures where elders are the protectors of the ethical and cultural wisdom of the tribe and it is this eldership which preserves the cultural heritage and the moral integrity of the community. For Jung, if a culture is to maintain its deepest, profoundest roots, while moving forward to embrace the challenges of historical and technical change, it needs to find a balance between the energy, vigour and competitiveness 6of those in the first half of life and the experience, dignity and wisdom of those in the second. The young braves or warriors of the tribe, with all their zest and vigour, ultimately obey the rules of the elders, and this equilibrium provides a culture with the essential balance between audacity and prudence, impetuosity and foresight, energy and moderation.

A striking example of how the wisdom of elders can constrain the belligerence of tribal warriors took place in October 1962 when humanity faced what the historian Arthur Schlesinger called ‘the most dangerous moment in human history.’ On the morning of 16 October, the director of the CIA presented President Kennedy with irrefutable evidence that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba, ninety miles from the US mainland. By mid-morning Kennedy had convened a meeting with his military chiefs, by the end of which the President had all but decided upon an immediate air strike against Cuba followed by a full-scale invasion of the island. Kennedy then was scheduled to have lunch with his US Ambassador to the United Nations, the veteran American politician and diplomat Adlai Stevenson. Kennedy greatly prized Stevenson’s experience and wisdom and had publicly stated that ‘the integrity and credibility of Adlai Stevenson constitutes one of our greatest national assets.’

Kennedy invited Stevenson into the Oval Office, explained his predicament and told him that he was 7about to activate the full military option advised by his generals. Stevenson was deeply concerned to hear about the Soviet actions, but was even more horrified to hear about the massive military response that Kennedy was about to unleash and insisted that there should be no air strike or invasion until every possible peaceful solution had been explored. He also advised that the motives behind the Soviet’s reckless strategy should be carefully examined before responding with an equally reckless military approach. Kennedy then discussed the veteran Stevenson’s warning with his brother Bobby and thankfully the US military action was postponed.

For the next thirteen days two conflicting views polarised around Stevenson’s diplomatic, less bellicose approach and the aggressive, belligerent views of the military leadership led by the head of the army, Maxwell Taylor, and the head of the air force, General Curtis LeMay. LeMay was a particularly unpleasant individual who regarded his greatest achievement as ‘Operation Meetinghouse’, an air raid which took place in March 1945 when 325 B-29 bombers incinerated sixteen square miles of Tokyo, killing 100,000 civilians. It was the most deadly, most violent four hours in human history. The power of LeMay’s invective now seemed to be propelling the argument towards a nuclear strike against Cuba with consideration given to a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet Union itself. Yet as the debate continued, the doves, led by Stevenson, slowly began to prevail over the hawks, led by LeMay.

8Finally it was Stevenson’s advice that Kennedy followed and the President chose a naval blockade of Cuba rather than the military strategy of bombing or invasion. The President also implemented Stevenson’s proposal that the US should offer to exchange their missiles based in Turkey for the Cuban based Soviet missiles. The Generals were, of course, violently opposed to this plan and regarded it as a sign of weakness, but this gesture of reconciliation became US government policy which greatly reduced superpower tensions. Once the naval blockade was imposed Stevenson was also significantly involved in the formulation of all communications that Kennedy sent Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev until the crisis was resolved. At this critical moment in history – the nearest we have come to species extinction – a kind of natural selection was at work. Subsequent historical analyses suggest that had Kennedy taken the bombing and invasion option, there was a high probability that catastrophic nuclear conflict would have followed. The species was saved, however, by the prudent counsel of a wise elder which produced