This last stage, referred to delicately as late adulthood
or maturity, or less delicately as old age, begins sometime around retirement, after the kids have gone, say somewhere around
60. Some older folks will protest and say it only starts when you feel old and so on, but that's an effect of our youth-worshipping
culture, which has even old people avoiding any acknowledgement of age. In Erikson's theory, reaching this stage is a good
thing, and not reaching it suggests that earlier problems retarded your development!
The task is to develop ego integrity with a minimal amount
of despair. This stage, especially from the perspective of youth, seems like the most difficult of all. First comes a detachment
from society, from a sense of usefulness, for most people in our culture. Some retire from jobs they've held for years; others
find their duties as parents coming to a close; most find that their input is no longer requested or required.
Then there is a sense of biological uselessness, as the body
no longer does everything it used to. Women go through a sometimes dramatic menopause; Men often find they can no longer "rise
to the occasion." Then there are the illnesses of old age, such as arthritis, diabetes, heart problems, concerns about breast
and ovarian and prostrate cancers. There come fears about things that one was never afraid of before -- the flu, for example,
or just falling down.
Along with the illnesses come concerns of death. Friends
die. Relatives die. One's spouse dies. It is, of course, certain that you, too, will have your turn. Faced with all this,
it might seem like everyone would feel despair.
In response to this despair, some older people become preoccupied
with the past. After all, that's where things were better. Some become preoccupied with their failures, the bad decisions
they made, and regret that (unlike some in the previous stage) they really don't have the time or energy to reverse them.
We find some older people become depressed, spiteful, paranoid, hypochondriacal, or developing the patterns of senility with
or without physical bases.
Ego integrity means coming to terms with your life, and thereby
coming to terms with the end of life. If you are able to look back and accept the course of events, the choices made, your
life as you lived it, as being necessary, then you needn't fear death. Although most of you are not at this point in life,
perhaps you can still sympathize by considering your life up to now. We've all made mistakes, some of them pretty nasty ones;
Yet, if you hadn't made these mistakes, you wouldn't be who you are. If you had been very fortunate, or if you had played
it safe and made very few mistakes, your life would not have been as rich as is.
The maladaptive tendency in stage eight is called presumption.
This is what happens when a person "presumes" ego integrity without actually facing the difficulties of old age. The malignant
tendency is called disdain, by which Erikson means a contempt of life, one's own or anyone's.
Someone who approaches death without fear has the strength
Erikson calls wisdom. He calls it a gift to children, because "healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity
enough not to fear death." He suggests that a person must be somewhat gifted to be truly wise, but I would like to suggest
that you understand "gifted" in as broad a fashion as possible: I have found that there are people of very modest gifts who
have taught me a great deal, not by their wise words, but by their simple and gentle approach to life and death, by their
"generosity of spirit."