Vol. 2, Issue 8, Part E (2016)

Abstract
Introduction: Elderliness is a qualitatively different experience for each subject. It is preponderantly good for some,’ an autumn with deep bright tonalities’ and a bad experience for others. Between these two extremes of good and bad quality, there is probably a continuum. Erikson has referred to the two extreme poles, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, as respectively the pole of ‘integration’ and of ‘despair’. explaining these Erikson’s concepts, Kimmell et al. summed up in the following way these two possibilities of emotional positioning of the elder facing the old age : “if the elderly subject manages to build a secure sense of the ego and a perception of his/her legacy, be it through the children or the work, he/she maintain an ego integrity, whereas the incapability to provide for a solution for this conflict results simultaneously in disappointment with his/her own self (with the subject proper) and, therefore, despair’ ².