FRHD 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 18: Dementia, Midlife Crisis, Phobia

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Family Relations and Human Development
• Course: FRHD 1010
• Professor: Triciavan Rhijn

Document Summary

Troubling emotions such as depression and anxiety tend to decline as we age, whereas positive emotions tend to remain fairly steady. As a whole, older canadians are equally as happy as younger. Labeled his 8th and final stage of life, the stage of ego integrity or despair. Believed that people who achieved positive outcomes to earlier life crises would be more likely to obtain ego integrity than despair in adulthood. Basic challenge is to maintain the belief that life is meaningful and worthwhile despite physical decline and the inevitability of death. Ego integrity derives from wisdom and the acceptance of one"s lifespan being limited (requires the wisdom to let go) Daniel levinson theorized that one aspect of the midlife crisis was that people realized they had more to look back on than to look forward to. Reminiscence was once considered a symptom of dementia, but contemporary researchers consider it to be a normal aspect of aging.