Abstract

SOARES, Sylvia Salles Godoy de Souza. Because I exist. Rev. bras. psicanál [online]. 2024, vol.58, n.1, pp.47-61.  Epub Nov 29, 2024. ISSN 0486-641X.  https://doi.org/10.69904/0486-641x.v58n1.04.

In this article, the author discusses the clinical experience of women at different stages of aging. It is important to distinguish the anxieties of aging, which is a process that begins around the age of 50, marked by menopause and the subsequent fear of losing one’s femininity, and lasts ad infinitum into old age, when real losses occur, of the functions of the body and the images linked to it, as well as concrete losses of loving objects: parents, family, friends… Time, memory, reminiscences may differ, but loneliness is the same in all the cases portrayed. Anxieties, dreams, nightmares can change fiction into reality, or vice versa. It is imperative to change habits due to changes in the body. However, the elderly person’s self shows an astonishing renewal of interests. Freud points out that children play to the same degree that adults dream and daydream. As time goes by, they discover new ways of living, or rather, of knowing how to live.

Keywords : aging/old age; anxiety; loneliness; life/death; reviviscences.

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