Evening star., 1938-08-18
5O|S HELD MEMS
DANGEROUS AGE
British Scientists Told 1t Is
Time When CompIexes
Are Ironed Out.
BY THOMAS r.. HENRY,
Star STAFF Correspondent.

is adolescence in reverse, English Psy
chologist w. R. Brown told the Brit
ish Association for the Advancement
of Science meeting here today. 1t is
the time, he said, when men come to
psychoanalysts to have their conflicts
and complexes ironed out. Courage
is required to go through with it.
This is the point in life, DR.. Brown
said, when the male of the species
comes to the parting of the ways, no
matter how much longer he may live.
Almost up the present generation 1T
used to be a ripe age when death
had settled most problems for most
people. Now the psychiatrist must
step in instead and study the peculiar
problems of so as he has studied
those of childhoods For one thing,
he said, sometimes between IS and so
man suddenly realizes that what
he is he is-with no turning back. He
has passed the point where it is easily
possible to start all over again, mas
ter a new trade or profession, begin a
new family or move out of his ac-
customed environment.
Realizes the Die Is Cast.
All his life he probably has been
dissatisfied with his Job. his status in
the world, but has been able to look
upon them as temporary. He has
relieved his dissatisfaction with his
actual lot by dreaming of the future.
Rather abruptly this avenue of relief
is cut off. The man realizes that
until the end he must 60 on with his
present position and his present home,
which may have grown pretty dingy
since the long past honeymoon days.
From adolescence on, DR.. Brown
said, most men are more or less prone
to narcissism, which is only a Greek
term for thinking pretty well of them
selves and being convinced that the
low opinions of other folks are due
to prejudice or ignorance Men tend
to identify themselves with more sue
cessful figures of fact or fiction like
John D. Rockefeller or Napoleon. The
last vestige of this narcissism must
be given up at the critical age, DR..
Brown said, and it hurts terribly. The
man of so in a sense is like the child
of IL trying to give up crying for its
mother when 1t is in trouble. Besides.
he cannot help but feel that he is de-
Ginning physically and hasn't the
energy to undertake new way of life
even If it is opened up to him.
Two Ways Out.
Now, DR.. Brown stressed, there is
no standing still and there are two
ways out for the 50-year-old One is
the way of repression, deliberately
closing his eyes to the facts of life
and forcing himself back to an earlier
and probably lower level. He may
throw up his business and start farm
ing, not as a hobby but actually with
the idea that he can make a success
of it. Or he may divorce his wife
and marry young woman who seems
closer to his boyhood ideals. This
foolish forties" stage is brought about
by the Identification of the individual
with himself of 20 or 80 years ago.
Almost always, Dr. Brown stressed,
this way out leads to tragedy and
death.
This repression, DR.. Brown said, is
in fact the greatest psychological
danger at every stage of adult life
during which people forev,: are try
ing to run away from the unpleasant
present. The only place they can flee
to is presumably happier past, its
pains forgotten, and in extreme cases
this leads to some of the most hope
less forms of insanity.
Many, he pointed out, try to do this
through their children. They iden-
tify themselves with the youngsters,
imagine themselves back at the chill
dren's ages, and then try to make the
children lead the lives they would
like to have led. This is tough on
the youngsters, he stressed, and is one
of the persistent difficulties encoun-
tered by psychologists who are con-
suited on problems of young people.
The girl wants to marry the fellow
she likes and not the fellow her moth
er thinks she would have liked at the
same age when she foolishly threw
herself away on her present unro-
mantle husband
ena of middle age repression, DR..
Brown said, is joining freak cults and
in general making an ass of one
SELF
Sublimation the Other Way.
The other way out of the impasse of
80, DR.. Brown said, is sublimation, the
exact opposite of repression. In this
the man frankly recognizes his age
and that so far as much personal ad-
vancement is concerned he is through
So he forgets himself. Identifies him.
self with his children as they are
rather than as he might like them to
be, or takes up mildly some worthy
cause in the world. But in this case
there is always frank facing of the
facts.
The peculiar psychiatric problems Of
maturity actually start, DR.. Brown
said, as soon as honeymoon is over
and couple settled down in their
own home. The young man In par
ticular finds that he must develop a
"binocular vision of life," so that he
can look at it from both the mascu-
line and feminine viewpoints. Hither-
to he has had solely masculine out
look, and the required change may
tax his capacities to the breaking
point. 1t may be the reason why
many marriages go to smash early.
With the birth of children, he said,
come new problems which may affect
all the future life. The worst of these
ic I1
cissism which reaches its crisis on the
shoals of so, regarding the chill
dren as images of the self in the
mirror and Furnishing them if they
don't act as respectable mirror i'm
ages are supposed to act. A parent,
ne said. must be taught to live for his
children in an objective way, help
ing them ahead by all means possible
by always regarding them as individ-
ualS lust as distinct from hiunseIf ne