Abstract

JUNKERS, Gabriele. The capacity to be alone as proof of maturity in aging. Rev. bras. psicanál [online]. 2024, vol.58, n.1, pp.27-43.  Epub Nov 29, 2024. ISSN 0486-641X.  https://doi.org/10.69904/0486-641x.v58n1.03.

Everyone is familiar with the feeling of loneliness, described in its most varied forms by poets and philosophers. The way we experience loneliness, deal with it and process it is individual and differs completely from person to person. Growing old means mastering countless developmental tasks. How is it possible not to respond to the impending losses and goodbyes of old age with pathological defensive measures, but instead to experience the end of working life as a new phase of introversion, retrospective looking and inner plenitude? The author considers the capacity to be alone to be a favorable prerequisite for successfully facing the challenges of aging and refers to psychoanalytic authors who dedicated themselves to the theme of loneliness when they were already at a late stage in life. The more consolidated the ability to adapt to different realities, especially unpleasant ones, the greater the possibility of accepting one’s own mistakes. In this case, there could also be a decrease in resentment towards those realities of life that were created by the person themselves in the past.

Keywords : aging; loneliness; capacity to be alone; aging of the analyst.

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