Middle Age
Jung believed that major personality changes occur between the ages of 35 and 40. This period of middle age was a time of personal crisis for jung and many of his patients. By then, the adaptation problems of young adulthood have been resolved, The typical 40 year-old is established in a career, a marriage, and a community. Jung asked why, when success has been achieved, so many people that age are gripped by feeling of despair and worthlessness. His patients all told him essentially the same thing: They left empty. Adventure, excitement, and zest had disappeared. Life had lost its meaning.
The more Jung analyzed this period, the more strongly he believed that such drastic personality changes were inevitable and universal. Middle age is a nature time of transition in which the personality is supposed to undergo necessary and beneficial changes. Ironically, the changes occur because middle-age persons have been so successful in meeting life’s demands. These people had invested a great deal of energy in the preparatory activities of the first half of life, but by age 40 that preparation was finished and those challenges had been met. Although they still process considerable energy, the energy now has nowhere to go; it-has to be rechanneled into different activities and interests.