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Meridian — the journal of mid-life opportunity
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Meridian
- the journal
of mid-life opportunity
Recently the Mid-Life Centre Development Group was formed. This group produces the journal Meridian. Copies of the first three issues are free and can be obtained from: Meridian, The Birmingham Settlement, 318 Summer Lane, Birmingham B19 3RL, U.K. J.M. Featherstone wrote the following statement about the aims of the group.
Meridian: what and why? Three periods in a life time - infancy, middle age and old age - have been reckoned over the years so special in their experience that they have been objects of vast research (mainly North American research) and much reflection, the results of which pack the library shelves. At the same time, at increasing pace, organisations both private and public have grown up devoted to the understanding and care of those beginning life and those soon to leave it. The reward of this effort is apparent in the best of our schools and colleges and our welfare services. It is, however, remarkable that life between the ages of twenty and sixty or so, from the beginning of a career until the ending of it, excites little attention from students of human development and few special organisations exist to promote its well-being. There are some organisations such as Marriage Guidance for example, to deal with particular problems, but their regard it seems, is almost more the problem than for the complexities and regularities of life which are its context. In recent years life-span development psychology has pointed out that the middle years, although less critical and turbulent than infancy or the onset of retirement, do have their crises, personality changes and shifts of attitude, all of which the stress and pace of modern life reveal ever more clearly.
Changes and chances As in other periods of a life span, there is, it would seem, in middle life a regular pattern of expected changes: physical change demands adjustment in physical activity, diet and body care; children leave home and cause the ‘empty nest’; leisure and resources both increase; perspective changes as there is a culmination of personal achievement. But there are also unexpected events, such as the so-called ‘mid-life crisis’; whether such experiences are essentially part of the sequence of human development or are particular responses to the turbulence of modern society are questions yet to be explored in research. Whatever their cause, they may be every bit as painful and profound as those experienced by the adolescent or the newly retired; and the nature of the cause will determine our capacity to anticipate and avoid or surmount them. In human affairs all change presents opportunity as well as threat. In middle life,
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opportunities may take different forms from those of earlier life: what lies ahead may not for many be ‘success’ fuelled by personal ambition, but the discovery of inner resources to take up the new opportunities offered by release and rediscovery of self. Powers and problems One reason why middle life may have been neglected is that in that age group most authority and power resides, whether political, economic or moral, in our society. Such people, one may say, either have few problems, or at the very least command the resources to solve them for themselves. If one accepts this view, it follows that those who need help are in some sense inadequate. Certainly the middle aged are notoriously sensitive to the suggestion that they may need help. But the experiences of mid-life are probably not most effectively explained as problems of the inadequate: rather they can be interpreted either as developmental, and thus as common and natural to this age group as are the stages of childhood, or responsive to the pressures of change within society. Meridian’s purpose: research, information, resources Our understanding is tentative so far and, in Great Britain, even rudimentary; but one theme emerges from it: the possibility of continuing growth and development throughout the span of a lifetime. People change and people change their world. Meridian, therefore, founded by those concerned professionally to help people change their world and by academics investigating that world, responds to the challenge of the unknown qualities of mid-life by research, information and resources. Firstly, Meridian seeks to promote, foster and co-ordinate research which investigates regularities in the experiences of mid-life, so to predict and assist in surmounting what is adverse, and which explores those key elements of mid-life such as health, employment, family education and leisure. Essentially, Meridian seeks the new and creative opportunity inherent in change and the means to translate it into reality for all who desire to do so. Secondly, Meridian intends both to disseminate the findings of research and other relevant information and to be itself a means whereby those with interests whether professional, academic or personal in mid-life may share their insights and experience. Furthermore, Meridian will endeavour by all appropriate means to present information about matters of common interest or concern to a wider public. Finally, as research and exchange reveal more clearly the needs of people in mid-life, Meridian will endeavour to make known where and how those needs may be met, acquiring where necessary the means to do so. To these ends, Meridian welcomes the co-operation of all who share in this concern. J.M. Featherstone
Meridian
- the journal
of mid-life opportunity
Recently the Mid-Life Centre Development Group was formed. This group produces the journal Meridian. Copies of the first three issues are free and can be obtained from: Meridian, The Birmingham Settlement, 318 Summer Lane, Birmingham B19 3RL, U.K. J.M. Featherstone wrote the following statement about the aims of the group.
Meridian: what and why? Three periods in a life time - infancy, middle age and old age - have been reckoned over the years so special in their experience that they have been objects of vast research (mainly North American research) and much reflection, the results of which pack the library shelves. At the same time, at increasing pace, organisations both private and public have grown up devoted to the understanding and care of those beginning life and those soon to leave it. The reward of this effort is apparent in the best of our schools and colleges and our welfare services. It is, however, remarkable that life between the ages of twenty and sixty or so, from the beginning of a career until the ending of it, excites little attention from students of human development and few special organisations exist to promote its well-being. There are some organisations such as Marriage Guidance for example, to deal with particular problems, but their regard it seems, is almost more the problem than for the complexities and regularities of life which are its context. In recent years life-span development psychology has pointed out that the middle years, although less critical and turbulent than infancy or the onset of retirement, do have their crises, personality changes and shifts of attitude, all of which the stress and pace of modern life reveal ever more clearly.
Changes and chances As in other periods of a life span, there is, it would seem, in middle life a regular pattern of expected changes: physical change demands adjustment in physical activity, diet and body care; children leave home and cause the ‘empty nest’; leisure and resources both increase; perspective changes as there is a culmination of personal achievement. But there are also unexpected events, such as the so-called ‘mid-life crisis’; whether such experiences are essentially part of the sequence of human development or are particular responses to the turbulence of modern society are questions yet to be explored in research. Whatever their cause, they may be every bit as painful and profound as those experienced by the adolescent or the newly retired; and the nature of the cause will determine our capacity to anticipate and avoid or surmount them. In human affairs all change presents opportunity as well as threat. In middle life,
351
opportunities may take different forms from those of earlier life: what lies ahead may not for many be ‘success’ fuelled by personal ambition, but the discovery of inner resources to take up the new opportunities offered by release and rediscovery of self. Powers and problems One reason why middle life may have been neglected is that in that age group most authority and power resides, whether political, economic or moral, in our society. Such people, one may say, either have few problems, or at the very least command the resources to solve them for themselves. If one accepts this view, it follows that those who need help are in some sense inadequate. Certainly the middle aged are notoriously sensitive to the suggestion that they may need help. But the experiences of mid-life are probably not most effectively explained as problems of the inadequate: rather they can be interpreted either as developmental, and thus as common and natural to this age group as are the stages of childhood, or responsive to the pressures of change within society. Meridian’s purpose: research, information, resources Our understanding is tentative so far and, in Great Britain, even rudimentary; but one theme emerges from it: the possibility of continuing growth and development throughout the span of a lifetime. People change and people change their world. Meridian, therefore, founded by those concerned professionally to help people change their world and by academics investigating that world, responds to the challenge of the unknown qualities of mid-life by research, information and resources. Firstly, Meridian seeks to promote, foster and co-ordinate research which investigates regularities in the experiences of mid-life, so to predict and assist in surmounting what is adverse, and which explores those key elements of mid-life such as health, employment, family education and leisure. Essentially, Meridian seeks the new and creative opportunity inherent in change and the means to translate it into reality for all who desire to do so. Secondly, Meridian intends both to disseminate the findings of research and other relevant information and to be itself a means whereby those with interests whether professional, academic or personal in mid-life may share their insights and experience. Furthermore, Meridian will endeavour by all appropriate means to present information about matters of common interest or concern to a wider public. Finally, as research and exchange reveal more clearly the needs of people in mid-life, Meridian will endeavour to make known where and how those needs may be met, acquiring where necessary the means to do so. To these ends, Meridian welcomes the co-operation of all who share in this concern. J.M. Featherstone