Vital Involvement in Old Age by Erik H. Erikson

Author:Erik H. Erikson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2013-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

7. AUTONOMY AND SHAME/DOUBT: WILL

The tension between autonomy and shame/doubt involves very early issues of control over one’s own body, one’s own behavior, and, in a larger sense, one’s own life. Once, as a toddler, the individual has established basic control over sphincter and skeletal muscles, he or she spends a lifetime struggling to balance the exercise of will with discriminating self-restraint—to be independent and true to oneself, and simultaneously to be concerned with safety and convention. As the body changes and develops throughout the life cycle, capacities for autonomous behavior also develop and change, expanding and contracting with the overall waxing and waning of physical prowess. Along with actual behavioral capacities, individual feelings of self-determination and of helplessness remain connected with the body, and they resurface throughout life—at times, for example, of bodily damage from illness or injury, of the bodily changes of puberty, and of the deteriorations of old age.

With the failing physical capacities associated even with the healthiest aging, the limits of personal autonomy undergo an inevitable constriction. The elder has known the fullest extent of physical self-reliance as well as adulthood’s greatest measure of willful mastery over other aspects of life. In old age, he or she confronts limitations that are both internal and external in origin, related to actual physical capacity, and also to societal stereotype and expectation. In the face of new limitations, the elder must struggle to maintain the willfulness and the independence that remain possible. This struggle, like those surrounding the other themes discussed thus far, comprises the observable realm of behavior and the related, more private realm of feelings. The people in our study strive to maintain behavioral adequacy, despite increasing physical disability. They endeavor to remain independent, despite increasing needs for various kinds of assistance. In an effort to balance stubbornness with compliance, they seek to make some kind of personal peace with societal expectations of the aged, without surrendering the sense of self-determination that is essential to the sense of autonomy throughout the life cycle.

Almost all of our informants suffer from one or another of a vast array of old-age-related physiological and psychological disorders, which, like those in the aged population as a whole, range from a simple diminution of earlier capacities to conditions that seriously impair day-to-day functioning. Regardless of the degree of functional impact, each disorder has a qualitative functional impact that influences the individual’s equilibration of the opposing tendencies toward autonomy and toward shame or doubt. Even those people who describe themselves as being in excellent health and in no way physically limited nonetheless observe that they tire more easily than in earlier life and that they simply do not have the energy to do all of the things they used to do. Most of them mention impaired vision or hearing, often corrected with eyeglasses and hearing aids. These simple impairments necessitate an ongoing dependence on corrective procedures and devices.

The woman who needs a nap after two hours of driving around town can no longer decide, spontaneously, to drop in on a friend for lunch after completing a morning’s errands.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.