Crisis or Non-Crisis

 In terms of midlife crisis or noncrisis, there exist many debates in the research field and clinical practices. According to Freund and Ritter (2009), the strict definition of midlife crisis refers to “normative, bound to a specific phase in the life span, and structurally different from other crises”. The main assumption of the strict conception is that development is a lifelong process and there is no primacy of one developmental phase over another (Freund & Ritter, 2009). It is also in line with the assumption that development can best be understood as the interplay of personal goals and external structures, such as opportunity structures and social norms. Based on such assumptions, the crisis will be shown and linked to a specific time in the life span (Freund & Ritter, 2009).

Secondly, a moderate definition of midlife crisis predicts the transition from old to new goals is a challenging period (Freund & Ritter, 2009). The most distinct characteristic of the moderate definition from the strict one is that the challenges of middle adulthood result in a crisis only for vulnerable people rather than all middle-aged people. More and more evidences do not support the strict definition with the existence of a normative midlife crisis: Vaillant (1977) suggests that traumatic crisis at midlife is rare. In Shek’s (1996) study, the results also reveals that although midlife crisis levels are different in the various age groups, there is no clear rise or peak in concerns in any particular age group. Thirdly, the notion of middle adulthood as a time of challenges to life management is at the core of a lenient concept of the midlife crisis (Freund & Ritter, 2009). By giving up normativity, this conceptualization no longer posits a general theory of adult development. Levinson (1986) describes the midlife crisis as a midlife transition in a tumultuous time—a period of major upheaval and self-evaluation, not unlike adolescence. Indeed, midlife transition generally only reaches a crisis point when an individual feels unable to cope with the natural changes, lacks an adequate support system or has existing psychological conditions that might be exacerbated by change (McAulay, 2006).

References
Freund, A. M., & Ritter, J. O. (2009). Midlife Crisis: A Debate. Gerontology, 55, 582-591. doi:10.1159/000227322
Levinson, D. J. (1986). A conception of adult development. American Psychologist, 41, 3-13.
McAulay, J. (2006). Midlife without the crisis. Today's Chiropractic Lifestyle, 35, 44-47.
Shek, D. L. (1996). Midlife crisis in Chinese men and women. Journal of Psychology, 130, 109-119.
Vaillant, G. E. (1977). Adaptation to life. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Theoritical Basis from Modern Angle

Hollis (1993) is a Jungian psychologist who taught the Humanities 26 years in various colleges and universities, and then served as a licensed Jungian analyst in private practice in U.S.A.). He expounds his theory in his book The Middle Passage—From Misery to Meaning in Midlife. He divides a whole life into two parts: the first half and the second half of life. In the first part, one identifies any such reflexive, feeling-charged response with the nature of the personal complex with animistic thinking or magical thinking (in childhood) and heroic thinking (in adolescence). In the second half of life, one shifts identities from dependency of the ego (in childhood), spiritual confusion and ego lability (in puberty) into an individuation and finally mortality which involves learning to live with the mystery of death. During the individuation process, “the sense of betrayal, of failed expectations, the vacuum and loss of meaning which occur with the dissolution, creates the midlife crisis (Hollis, 1993, p. 26)”. “Most of the sense of crisis in midlife is occasioned by the pain of that split. The disparity between the inner sense of self and the acquired personality becomes so great that the suffering can no longer be suppressed or compensated (Hollis, 1993, p. 15)”. Thus, he claims that symptoms of midlife distress are actually to be welcomed, because they represent “not only an instinctually grounded self underneath the acquired personality bit a powerful imperative for renewal (Hollis, 1993, p. 15)”. He also addresses that the Middle Passage, “less a chronological event than a psychological experience”, represents a wonderful, though often painful opportunity to revision our sense of self, and “represents a summons from within to move from the provisional life to true adulthood, from the false self to authenticity (Hollis, 1993, p. 15)”. Moreover, he concerns about going through the Middle Passage as a necessary way to achieve one’s potential and to earn the vitality and wisdom of mature aging.

According to Levinson’s (1986) theory, the life cycle is divided into four eras: (a) preadulthood--an initial segment before roughly age 22, including childhood and adolescence; (b) early adulthood—the second era from about age 17 to 45; (c) middle adulthood—the third era from age 40 to 65; (d) late adulthood—the final era from 60 to death. The most distinct view of Levinson from other theories about stage development is that Levinson conceived of the transition between two eras: there were three obvious and important transitions in the whole life course—Early Adult Transition, Midlife Transition and Late Adult Transition. “A transitional period terminates the existing life structure and creates the possibility for a new one. The primary tasks of every transitional period are to reappraise the existing structure, to explore possibilities for change in the self and the world, and to move toward commitment to the crucial choices that form the basis for a new life structure in the ensuing period. Transitional periods ordinarily last about five years (Levinson, 1986, p. 7)”. Levinson (1986) also asserted that adults spent almost as much time in the structure-building periods and the structure-changing periods, and both played a crucial part in adult development. In addition, he emphasized development was not synonymous with growth; rather, it had the twin aspects of “growing up” (adolescing) and “growing down” (senescing). In early and middle adulthood, adolescing and senescing coexist in an uneasy balance. Biologically, the forces of senescence gradually come to the balance point and then exceed after adolescence. Psychologically, twin aspects of growth are possible in the whole life course and “they are by no means assured of realization and they are jeopardized by external constraints as well as inner vulnerabilities (Levinson, 1986, p. 10)”. At a given time, personality, social structure, culture, social roles, major life events, biology--these and other influences exert a powerful effect on the actual character of the individual life structure and on its development during adulthood (Levinson, 1986). Viktor Frankl (1967) proposed the existential emptiness of people. This existential vacuum is explained by Frankl (1967, p. 57) as that people have been lost in the process of becoming a truly human being. Yalom also implied in the middle age period, concerns about the meaning of life and death anxiety are more natural than in other periods (Weaver, 2009).

References
Frankl, V. (1967). Psychotherapy and Existentialism. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Hollis, J. (1993). The Middle Passage: From Msery to Meaning in Midlife. Toronto, CA: Inner City Books.
Levinson, D. J. (1986). A conception of adult development. American Psychologist, 41, 3-13
Weaver, Y. (2009). Mid-Life -- A Time of Crisis or New Possibilities? Existential Analysis: Journal Of The Society For Existential Analysis, 20(1), 69-78.

Theoritical basis from historical angle

Sigmund Freud divided people’s (psychosexual) development into 5 stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital. According to his psychosexual theory, people’s development has been mature till adult, and personality has been completely formed. It seems to mean people’s development would stop at the early stage of adult. In contrast, Erik Erickson’s proposed a theory of development that continues throughout the life span. His theory states that there are universal life stages and that a specific psychosocial dilemma occurs at each phase of development. These problems (crises) must be resolved before an individual can move to the next developmental stage. Erikson's theory has been credited for accounting for continuity and changes in personality development. In Erickson’s theory, generativity versus stagnation also coincides with the idea of a midlife crisis. Erikson believed that in this stage adults begin to understand the pressure of being committed to improving the lives of generations to come. In this stage a person realizes the inevitability of mortality and that they will not be around forever and the virtue of this stage is creating a better world for future generations in order for the human race to grow. Stagnation is the lack of psychological movement or growth. Instead of helping the community a person is barely able to help their own family. Those who experience stagnation do not invest in the growth of themselves or others. This is relatable to midlife crisis because a person becomes aware of the time they have left to live and decide how they want to spend that time..

Jung tended to see midlife crisis as a spiritual crisis—focusing on inner transformation and introspective depth. Therefore Jung relied more on a number of his dreams to explore his midlife crisis. In his Memories, Dreams, Reflections of dreams and waking visions, powerful transformative images sequently presented five potentially major themes of male midlife transformation:
(1)The demise or diminishment at midlife of the youthful and blindly self-assertive heroic attitude;
(2)The problematic coming to consciousness of the shadow (the repressed contents of the personal unconscious).
(3)The resurgence of a man’s feminine side (his anima);
(4)The appearance of a midlife mentor; (5)The acquisition of a new sense of identity.

References
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Norton
Frankl, V. (1967). Psychotherapy and Existentialism. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Huyck, M. (2002). Why Are Some Married Men Vulnerable at Midlife? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Jung, C. G. (1923). Psychological types. London, UK: Pantheon Books.
Vaillant, G. E. (1977). Adaptation to life. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

In popular culture

The midlife crisis has been the subject of many television series and films, often the source of amusement in sitcoms, soaps and other television productions. The 1970s Polish television series, Czterdziestolatek, meaning "The 40-Year-Old" was entirely geared towards covering midlife crisis issues in a comedy series. In the Australian television series, Neighbours, Karl Kennedy went through a midlife crisis dating young women and changing his appearance. The American television show Louie sees a fictionalized Louis C.K. struggle with his midlife crisis, attempting to readjust to single life after the breakdown of a nine-year marriage and trying to raise his two young daughters. While the classic 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch deals with the supposed decline of marital quality after seven years of marriage, the protagonist Richard Sherman (played by Tom Ewell) is obviously going through a midlife crisis. In fact, the book that proposes the seven-year-itch hypothesis, entitled "Of Man and the Unconscious", even has a chapter on "The Repressed Urge in the Middle-Aged Male: Its Roots and lts Consequences" connecting it to the midlife crisis in men. As an editor for a publishing house, Sherman reads – and reads into – this psychological study which he believes directly corresponds to increasingly erotic, frenetic, and ultimately frantic daydreams stemming from his flirtation with the new nubile neighbor upstairs (Marilyn Monroe in one of her most memorable roles).

In China, there are a film (1981) and a series of TV (2012) with the same title "At Middle Age". They both desribed a couple encountered kinds of events, such as physical diseases, parent(s)'s death, children leaving home, and marital crisis between the couple. Decidedly more serious takes on the subject include John Cheever's short stories, "The Country Husband" and "The Swimmer", shedding light on modern '60s era suburbia, as well as more bittersweet and timely turns at the turn of the millennium in the films American Beauty (2000 Academy Awards Best Picture winner) and Lost in Translation. English progressive rocker, Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, also released a solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, which explores a man and his midlife crisis as he dreams of having an affair and tries desperately to find solutions to his problems. Similarly, The Kinks' songs, "Shangri-La" and "Clichés of the World (B Movie)", also appear to describe someone going through a midlife crisis. Award winning TV Show Breaking Bad depicts 2 years in the life of a middle class 50 year old high school teacher, who drops out of his normal life when diagnosed with terminal cancer and becomes a local drug lord. In the 2013 Rockstar Game; Grand Theft Auto V, protagonist Michael is described as a man in his mid-forties who is having a midlife crises.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czterdziestolatek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Year_Itch

Occurrence and Characteristics

Occurrence : For the approximately 10% of middle aged adults who go through an age-related midlife crisis, the condition is most common ranging from the ages of 41-60 (a large study in the 1990s found that the average age at onset of a self-described midlife crisis was 45). Midlife crises last about 3–10 years in men and 2–5 years in women.
A midlife crisis could be caused by aging itself, or aging in combination with changes, problems, or regrets over:
• work or career (or lack thereof)
• spousal relationships (or lack thereof)
• maturation of children (or lack of children)
• aging or death of parents
• physical changes associated with aging Midlife crises seem to affect men and women differently.
An American cultural stereotype of a man going through a midlife crisis is that he buys a sports car and/or a gold chain. Researchers have proposed that the triggers for midlife crisis differ between men and women, with male midlife crises more likely to be caused by work issues and female crises by personal evaluations of their roles. Even though there are differences between why men and women go through a midlife crisis, the emotions they both encounter can be extremely frightening. Characteristics One of the main characteristics of a midlife crisis perspective is one assumes that their midlife is about to be eventful, usually in a negative way, and potentially stressful.

Additionally, they often see their life coming to a drastic decline. Individuals experiencing a midlife crisis have some of these feelings:
•search of an undefined dream or goal
•a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished
•a fear of humiliation among more successful colleagues
•desire to achieve a feeling of youthfulness
•need to spend more time alone or with certain peers.
They exhibit some of these behaviors:
•abuse of alcohol
•acquisition of unusual or expensive items such as motorbikes, boats, clothing, sports cars, jewelry, gadgets, tattoos, piercings, etc.
•depression
•having remorse for one's wrongs.
•paying special attention to physical appearance such as covering baldness, wearing youthful designer clothes, etc.
•entering relationships with younger people (whether sexual, professional, parental, etc.)
•placing overimportance (and possibly a psychologically damaging amount) on their children to excel in areas such as sports, arts, or academics

References
Brim, O. G., & Featherman, D. L. (2012). Midlife Development Inventory Affect Scales. doi:10.1037/t10822-000
Clay, R. (2003). Researchers replace midlife myths with facts. Washington, District of Columbia, US: American
Psychological Association (APA).
Intarakamhang, U., & Thongpukdee, T. (2010). Effects of Self Managing Life Crisis Based on the Oriental towards Life Crisis
and Well-being of Married Women. International Journal Of Psychological Studies, 2(2), 170-178.
Levinson, D. J. (1978). The seasons of a man's life. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Levinson, D. J. (1986). A conception of adult development. American Psychologist, 41, 3-13.
Levinson, D. J. (1996). The seasons of a woman's life. New York: Alfred Knop
Nevidjon, B. (2004). Managing From the Middle: Integrating Midlife Challenges of Children,Elder Parents,and Career.
Clinical Journal Of Oncology Nursing, 8(1), 72-75. doi:10.1188/04.CJON.72-75

The definition and history of the midlife crisis.

Midlife crisis: A period of personal emotional turmoil and coping challenges that some people encounter when they reach middle age, accompanied by a desire for change in their lives, brought on by fears and anxieties about growing older. The phrase "midlife crisis" was introduced in 1965 by the psychoanalyst and social scientist Elliott Jaques in a study of creative geniuses. In the lives of numerous composers and artists, Dr. Jaques found abrupt changes in style or declines in productivity about age 35. A midlife crisis is experienced by many people during the midlife transition when they realize that life may be more than halfway over. Sometimes, a crisis can be triggered by transitions experienced in these years, such as andropause or menopause, the death of parents or other causes of grief, unemployment or underemployment, realizing that a job or career is hated but not knowing how else to earn an equivalent living, or children leaving home. People may reassess their achievements in terms of their dreams. The result may be a desire to make significant changes in core aspects of day-to-day life or situation, such as in career, work-life balance, marriage, romantic relationships, large expenditures, or physical appearance(Gordon, 2008). Academic research since the 1980s rejects the notion of midlife crisis as a phase that most adults go through. In one study, fewer than 10% of people in the United States had psychological crises due to their age or aging. Personality type and a history of psychological crisis are believed to predispose some people to this "traditional" midlife crisis. People going through this suffer a variety of symptoms and exhibit a disparate range of behaviors.

Reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midlife_crisis
Gordon, L. A. (2008).Midcareer Malaise. ABA Journal, 94(9), 38-43.