DANGEROUS THIRTIES Mid-life viewed as crisis period

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33101, 16 December 1972, Page 12

DANGEROUS THIRTIES Mid-life viewed as crisis period

(By

HAROLD M. SCHMECK, JUN.)

WASHINGTON.

A man or a woman often suffers in his thirties a life crisis that is at least as severe as that of his teens or old age, a psychologist has concluded from studies in the United States and Britain spanning several decades.

In this crisis period, from the early to late thirties, marriages break up, promising careers are derailed and serious accidents and suicides occur in abundance, Dr Kenn Rogers says. Dr Rogers, a psychologist trained at the University of London, is a professor of business administration at Cleveland State University in Ohio.

“Most research and its resulting theories about persons’ development concentrates on earlier and later stages of life,” he said in a lecture at the National Institute of Mental Health. “This leaves a gap of knowledge and insight into human events occurring between these two age periods—roughly frqm mini-skirt to Medicare.” Little documentation In an interview, Dr. Rogers said that there were scattered references to such a crisis of middle* life in the literature of psychology but that there was little documentation. His studies, first at the Tavistock Clinic in London and later with population groups in Nassau County, Long Island, give clear statistical support to his view, he said. From these studies it

appears that a particularly high risk period for divorce, unhappy extramarital affairs and other crises of personal life comes when man and Wife are in their thirties. The studies also show this to be the period when the young executive or professional man may suddenly see himself as not on a ladder leading upwards, but on a treadmill leading to nothing but old age and death. The result is sometimes a severe dislocation of career, he said. Sometimes, instead, it is a sudden rash of accidents or even attempted suicide. Detailed interviews with persons in. the study populations in London and Nassau County, as well as statistics on divorces in Britain from 1905 to 1954,' Dr Rogers said, suggest that these are general phenomena for that particular age group And are not peculiar to any time or place. \ Most survive crisis The majority of persons, of course, survive the mid-life crisis. Some go on to greater things in the forties and later decades, and others at least come to terms with life and its possibilities so that they can continue functioning usefully. In some, the critical period passes almost unnoticed, he said.

The causes of crisis are partly psychological and partly physiological, the psychologist believes. The person in the critical age range has passed the full flush of physical youth. Furthermore, anyone at the age of 35 can calculate that he has already lived roughly half his life. Many can see that the ideals and aspirations of youth will never be fulfilled.

The psychologist said his evidence suggests that the person’s family experiences in early life are a strong determining factor in the severity of the crisis of the thirties.

The person whose family was seriously jolted when he was very young appears much more likely to have difficulty weathering the mid-life time. In this, it appears that the delayed effects of family disruption are worse when the disruption occurs earliest. Dr Rogers said that the worst periods in this respect appeared to be the span from birth to 7 years of age. The psychologist suggested that timely counselling and other aids might help such high-risk persons avoid the worst consequences of the crisis that may develop in his thirties. — Copyright, 1972, “New York Times” news service.