Something often shifts somewhere in our late thirties to early fifties. The strategies that got us here, like working hard, pleasing the right people, hitting the milestones and keeping our heads down, stop working the way they used to. We may have the career, the marriage, the house and the kids, and still wake up at 3 a.m. with a question we can’t quite name.
Jungian analyst Edward Whitmont described this moment well. In The Symbolic Quest, he writes that the repressions of the first half of life, which served our ego development, can no longer be maintained: “The bill will now be presented for what was by-passed in the earlier years” (Whitmont, 1969/1991, p. 283). Whatever we set aside because it wasn’t practical, wasn’t rewarded, or didn’t help us fit in now comes back asking to be heard.
This post looks at that turn. It covers what Jung, Whitmont and James Hollis said about it, what current research adds, and how you can tell where you might be in the process.
Two Halves, Two Tasks
Carl Jung was one of the first Western thinkers to argue that adulthood has two very different psychological seasons. He called midlife the “afternoon of life.” He also warned that we cannot live it by the same program we used in the morning (Jung, 1931/1969, para. 784).
The first half of life is about building an ego that can survive in the world. We learn what earns love and approval. We form an identity, choose a career, find a partner and take on responsibilities. This is necessary work. But it always costs something. To fit in, we leave parts of ourselves behind: emotions that weren’t welcome in our families, interests that didn’t pay, and qualities that didn’t match who we were “supposed” to be.
The second half of life asks a different question. It is less “How do I succeed out there?” and more “What is my life actually for?” Whitmont puts the questions plainly. Who am I? What am I here for? What story or myth runs underneath the conflict and chaos of my life?
Whitmont adds an important caveat. If the first-half tasks were never adequately completed, they still have to be finished. Someone who never built a stable sense of self, never separated from family, or never found a workable place in the world can’t skip ahead to soul-searching. Midlife work assumes there’s an ego there to do it.
James Hollis and the Middle Passage
James Hollis, a Jungian analyst and one of the most widely read writers on this subject, calls this transition the Middle Passage (Hollis, 1993). Popular culture calls it a “midlife crisis,” which brings to mind sports cars and affairs. Hollis sees it differently: it is an invitation from the psyche to move from a provisional personality to an authentic one.
The provisional personality is the set of strategies we adopted in childhood to manage anxiety and get our needs met. It includes being the responsible one, the achiever, the peacekeeper or the one who never needs anything. These strategies were adaptive once. By midlife, they often become a cage.
Hollis (2005) argues that the central question of the second half is not “What do I want?”, which still serves the ego, but “What wants to live through me?” He suggests we often realize this through suffering rather than insight. Depression, anxiety, burnout, a failed marriage or physical symptoms are frequently the psyche’s way of saying that the old arrangement no longer fits.
Withdrawing Projections
One of Whitmont’s key points is that shadow can no longer be handled only through projection. In the first half of life, we tend to see our disowned qualities in other people. We see our anger in a difficult boss, our unlived creativity in an envied friend, and our longing for wholeness in a romantic partner who is supposed to “complete” us.
In midlife these projections start to fail. The partner turns out to be merely human. The boss is not the real problem. Hollis (1998) explored this at length in The Eden Project: no other person can carry the weight of our unlived life. The task becomes facing these energies inside ourselves.
Holding the Opposites
Whitmont describes how, at midlife, we become acutely aware of conflicts that won’t resolve neatly: duty versus desire, family versus vocation, security versus aliveness. Collective morality, meaning the rulebook we absorbed, no longer settles these questions. The inner split opens wide.
Jung believed these opposites aren’t meant to be solved by choosing one side. They are meant to be held until something new emerges, which he called the transcendent function. That process is uncomfortable, and it is also where real growth happens.
What the Research Says
Depth psychology describes this terrain from the inside. Contemporary research doesn’t confirm Jung’s theories directly, but it fits his picture surprisingly well.
Midlife is a real low point for many people, though not usually a “crisis.” Economist David Blanchflower (2021) analyzed well-being data from 145 countries. He found a U-shaped curve, with life satisfaction bottoming out around age 50 and then rising again. Some researchers argue that statistical artifacts exaggerate the size of the dip. Even so, the pattern shows up across many datasets. Developmental psychologists also point out that a full-blown “midlife crisis” is less common than popular culture suggests (Lachman, 2004). For most people, midlife is better described as a pivotal period that involves balancing gains and losses, linking earlier and later life, and bridging generations (Infurna et al., 2020). In other words, it is a transition rather than a breakdown.
The search for meaning gives way to the presence of meaning, if we do the work. Michael Steger and colleagues (2009) studied more than 8,700 adults. People at later life stages generally reported more presence of meaning, while younger people reported more searching. Importantly, searching without finding was more strongly tied to lower well-being in later life than in early life. A San Diego study of over 1,000 adults found that presence of meaning peaked, and searching hit its low, around age 60 (Aftab et al., 2020). In Jungian terms, the Middle Passage is where the search becomes urgent, and how we handle it shapes what comes after.
Purpose is protective. In the national MIDUS study, adults with a stronger sense of purpose lived longer over a 14-year follow-up. This held even after controlling for other measures of well-being, and it was true regardless of age or retirement status (Hill & Turiano, 2014). Meaning is not a luxury. It is tied to health.
The stories we tell about our lives matter. Narrative identity research shows that how we make sense of our life story predicts well-being (McAdams & McLean, 2013). People who can describe loss and struggle in depth, and who find growth in difficulty, tend to show greater psychological maturity. Midlife adults who score high on generativity, meaning care for future generations, tend to tell life stories that include “redemption sequences,” in which suffering leads to something good. This is very close to Whitmont’s question about the myth behind our existence.
Generativity is the developmental task. Erik Erikson (1963) framed midlife as a tension between generativity, meaning investment in what will outlast us, and stagnation. Research on ego development (Loevinger, 1976) adds that some adults move beyond rule-bound, conventional ways of seeing themselves. They develop a more individuated, self-authored identity that can tolerate complexity and contradiction. That shift closely parallels what Jung called individuation.
Where Are You in the Middle Passage?
Midlife isn’t a single event, and people don’t move through it in a straight line. Still, you may recognize yourself in one or more of these places.
1. Still Building the Foundation
You’re still working on first-half tasks, and that’s okay.
Signs: Your identity still feels unsettled. You may still be closely tied to your family of origin’s expectations. Career or relationship foundations feel shaky. External stability is the most pressing need.
Reflect:
- Where am I still living mainly to meet someone else’s expectations, and is that a choice or a compulsion?
- What first-half tasks feel unfinished? These might be independence, competence, intimacy or a stable place in the world.
- What support would help me build the foundation I need?
2. The Cracks Appear
The old strategies are starting to fail.
Signs: Restlessness, irritability, burnout, low-grade depression or anxiety that doesn’t make sense “on paper.” Achievements feel hollow. You may fantasize about escape: a new job, a new place or a new person.
Reflect:
- What did I set aside in my twenties and thirties because it wasn’t practical? Does it still call to me?
- When I imagine escape, what am I actually longing for underneath the fantasy?
- What symptoms or recurring problems in my life might be trying to tell me something?
- Whose life am I living: mine, my parents’, or my culture’s?
3. The Middle Passage
You’re in the descent.
Signs: Projections are failing, and the people you counted on to make you whole can’t. You feel caught between opposites with no clean answer. Old certainties, including religious, moral or professional ones, no longer hold. You may feel lost, but also strangely more honest.
Reflect:
- What qualities do I strongly admire or resent in others? How might those qualities live in me?
- What am I asking my partner, children or career to carry that is really mine to carry?
- What conflict am I trying to “solve” that might instead need to be held a while longer?
- If my current struggle were a chapter in a story, what would the chapter be called?
4. Turning Toward the Self
A new center of gravity is forming.
Signs: Less need for external validation. A growing sense of inner authority. Interest in meaning, depth, spirituality or legacy. More tolerance for paradox and for other people’s imperfections. Suffering starts to feel meaningful rather than only painful.
Reflect:
- What wants to live through me now?
- What would I regret not having done, said or become?
- What do I want to give to people who come after me?
- What does my inner life, including dreams, longings and intuitions, keep pointing toward?
Practices for the Second Half
These are concrete ways to work with this transition:
- Keep a dream journal. Jung and Whitmont both saw dreams as messages from the deeper psyche. Write them down without judging them, and notice recurring images.
- Write your life story in chapters. Name the chapters. Notice turning points, losses and where growth came out of difficulty. This draws directly on narrative identity research.
- Track your envy and resentment. Strong reactions to others often point to disowned parts of ourselves.
- Clarify values, not goals. Goals are things we finish. Values are directions we live in. Ask what you want your life to stand for.
- Make room for what was left behind. Pick up the instrument, the writing, the faith question or the friendship. Start small.
- Find a witness. This work is very hard to do alone. A depth-oriented therapist can help you hear what’s trying to emerge without rushing to fix it.
You Don’t Have to Make This Passage Alone
Midlife can feel like falling apart. From a depth perspective, it is often the psyche trying to bring together parts of you that were never allowed to be whole. The anxiety, restlessness and grief are not signs that something is wrong with you. They may be signs that something in you is trying to grow.
At Lindquist Psychological, I work with adults who find themselves in this territory. My approach blends psychodynamic and Jungian depth work with practical tools from CBT, ACT and mindfulness. You can make sense of what’s happening and still have strategies for getting through the hard weeks.
Learn more:
- Psychodynamic Therapy in Pittsburgh: depth-oriented work for meaning, identity and life transitions
- Anxiety Therapy in Pittsburgh: for the restlessness and dread that often come with midlife
- Anger Therapy in Pittsburgh: when irritability and frustration signal something deeper
- About Lindquist Psychological
- Browse more articles on the blog, including posts on men’s burnout, anxiety versus burnout, and acceptance-based approaches
Located in Carnegie, PA, serving the greater Pittsburgh area. Telehealth is available in Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, and PSYPACT states.
References
Aftab, A., Lee, E. E., Klaus, F., Daly, R., Wu, T.-C., Tu, X., Huege, S., & Jeste, D. V. (2020). Meaning in life and its relationship with physical, mental, and cognitive functioning: A study of 1,042 community-dwelling adults across the lifespan. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 81(1), Article 19m13064. https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.
Blanchflower, D. G. (2021). Is happiness U-shaped everywhere? Age and subjective well-being in 145 countries. Journal of Population Economics, 34(2), 575–624. https://doi.org/10.1007/
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). W. W. Norton.
Hill, P. L., & Turiano, N. A. (2014). Purpose in life as a predictor of mortality across adulthood. Psychological Science, 25(7), 1482–1486. https://doi.org/10.1177/
Hollis, J. (1993). The middle passage: From misery to meaning in midlife. Inner City Books.
Hollis, J. (1998). The Eden project: In search of the magical other. Inner City Books.
Hollis, J. (2005). Finding meaning in the second half of life: How to finally, really grow up. Gotham Books.
Infurna, F. J., Gerstorf, D., & Lachman, M. E. (2020). Midlife in the 2020s: Opportunities and challenges. American Psychologist, 75(4), 470–485. https://doi.org/10.1037/
Jung, C. G. (1969). The stages of life (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 8. The structure and dynamics of the psyche (2nd ed., pp. 387–403). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1931)
Lachman, M. E. (2004). Development in midlife. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 305–331. https://doi.org/10.1146/
Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego development: Conceptions and theories. Jossey-Bass.
McAdams, D. P., & McLean, K. C. (2013). Narrative identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(3), 233–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/
Steger, M. F., Oishi, S., & Kashdan, T. B. (2009). Meaning in life across the life span: Levels and correlates of meaning in life from emerging adulthood to older adulthood. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/
Whitmont, E. C. (1991). The symbolic quest: Basic concepts of analytical psychology (Expanded ed.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1969)
