Ego Integrity

The Institute for Personality and Ability Testing has certified Robert Fettgather as a Stress Management Trainer, and Medical Hypnosis Seminars of the Los Gatos Institute has certified him in Clinical Hypnotherapy.  At Santa Clara University, Graduate Department of Education and Counseling Psychology, Robert Fettgather's studies included Health Education and Behavioral Medicine. Robert Fettgather has completed Hospice Training with Hospice of the Valley.

Here is a quote to reflect upon: "Any span of the cycle lived without vigorous meaning, at the beginning, in the middle or at the end, endangers the sense of life and meaning of death ..." Erik Erikson

How do we experience the last years of the lifespan? For Erikson, the fruition of his seven previous stages is a sense of ego integrity or closure in a meaningful life. Alternatively, to come to a meaningless end is to die in despair. 

Social connection is also important to our last years. No matter how long an older couple has been together, the emotional support that most elders derive from an intimate partnership helps them cope. As you will learn in this Module, changes in roles and relationships are perhaps just as significant as physical ones. And for many older adults, these changes are perceived not as losses but as opportunities to create new roles and to make old age a time of personal and social gains. Moreover, the place where we grow old has importance and many older adults prefer to "age in place",  continuing to reside in their own home or apartment. 

Erikson termed the last of his eight life crises the ego integrity versus despair stage. He thought that the task of achieving ego integrity, the sense that one has lived a successful life that mattered, began in middle adulthood but was most central in late adulthood.

Research suggests Erikson's view that ego integrity is essential to mental health in old age may not be absolute for all elders. And contrary to the stereotype, most older adults are not disengaged from the social world and seem to benefit from social involvement as much as those who are younger.