Construing of midlife: Is it about a “midlife crisis”?

0559377 - PSÚ 2023 RIV IT eng A - Abstract
Filip, Miroslav - Poláčková Šolcová, Iva
Construing of midlife: Is it about a “midlife crisis”?
Conference Handbook. Padova: Universita di Padova, 2022. s. 18-18.
[International Congress of Personal Construct Psychology /24./. 13.07.2022-16.07.2022, Padova]
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA20-08583S
Institutional support: RVO:68081740
Keywords : midlife crisis * dialogical self * narrative analysis
OECD category: Psychology (including human - machine relations)
https://www.pcp2021.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Handbook-PCP-1.pdf

Midlife has been traditionally viewed as a period where an individual has reached the 'peak' of his/her life-span and recognizes his/her further life as inevitably declining and limited, which may raise the “midlife crisis” and the need for a reconstruction of meaning of life. Through a dialogical-narrative analysis of in-depth interviews about midlife experiences with 50 participants, we identified several patterns of construing of midlife. Although the most of participants mentioned the recognition of life as limited, the patterns of construing of midlife were more diverse and could not be reduced to the traditional view. Noticeably, the patterns were associated to social context (e.g., living in a family or living alone without stable relationships) and main social roles in previous life periods (e.g., raising child, career development). Comparing scores of participants on the Satisfaction with Life Scale, we discuss adaptivity of the patterns of construing of midlife. We argue that the dialogical-constructivist approach enables a fine-grained understanding of the period of midlife.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0332712