to be the midpoint of their lives stimulates reflection, reevaluation, and, frequently, a degree of panic. The midlife crisis is a real phenomenon.
One of the first theorists to suggest that personality development is an ongoing process was Erik H. Erikson. He used Sigmund Freud's chart of psychosexual development to create a broader graph, encompassing an entire lifetime. Erikson argued that individual development is the result of confrontation with eight major psychosocial crises. The way each individual faces these crises and come to terms with them determines his or her ability to achieve overall balance and mental health. Erikson's chart of these formative crises included all ages, and the period dealing with midlife issues is the first stage beyond Freud's psychosexual stage. In Erikson's view, midlife is the first important period in which sexual issues become less important than social considerations.
Erikson's stages are each precipitated by a crisis, a critical conflict that requires the individual to make important choices before proceeding with the next series of activities and challenges. Erikson writes, "Each stage becomes a crisis because incipient growth and awareness in a significant part function goes together with a shift in instinctual energy and yet causes specific vulnerability in that part" (56). The crisis is not an actual event, such as the death of a spouse or the onset of puberty but, instead, denotes a significant issue which requires resolution.
The crisis of young adulthood, the sixth stage of development and the stage preceding the midlife period, is the conflict between the search for intimacy and solidarity and the threat of isolation. At this point, the individual is immersed in a struggle between the loss of individuality and the need for separation. Successful resolution of this crisis allows cooperation, competition, and partnerships. In Freud's view, the individual who achiev...