Goetheanum | The Spiritual and Psychological Development and Its Significance in Old Age

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The spiritual and psychological development and its significance in old age

The care working group ‹Age Culture and Geriatrics› has been active since autumn 2024 and publishes its findings on the specialist portal Anthromedics. Questions and challenges include, for example, exploring connections between childhood and old age.

What does old age mean in our society? In traditional societies, it was held in high esteem: the wise counsel of the elderly was sought after and respected. Today, we are often far from this. Occasionally, it can be experienced as a ray of hope when an elderly person has an aura that evokes modesty or even reverence. In the spirit of our time, such people are not the norm, and this phenomenon can be well illuminated based on the anthroposophical understanding.

We live, implicitly influenced by contemporary opinions, under the possibly mistaken assumption that humans are fully developed and their evolution biologically complete. At best, certain bodily functions can be optimised or replaced by artificial prosthetics, but evolution or development in old age? What should that consist of? Yet, to develop ideals in geriatric medicine, the idea of a continuing evolution is necessary.

Exhausting the ego potential

According to Rudolf Steiner's indications, it is not complete: while in human evolution over long periods the physical and spiritual-psychological development were linked and occurred in parallel into advanced age, this spiritual-psychological developmental capacity has increasingly diminished in more recent times. This means that the spiritual-psychological developmental processes become independent of the physical and ‹naturally› end increasingly earlier.1

Thus, the evolution of today's human being mainly takes place in the inner soul over the course of their biography. Around the age of 28, they have the opportunity to develop themselves into spiritual-psychological life through individual initiative – or they more or less leave it at what inner maturation was achieved by the age of 28.

From an anthroposophical perspective, certain formative and supportive forces that have helped until then withdraw. Therefore, further ego development into advanced age can proceed cautiously: the ego potential is not fully utilised or the chance for self-education is missed, causing people, for example at 60 years old, to appear inwardly like they are in their late twenties. Today, a person from the age of 28 should independently spiritually absorb and express their inner, soul impulses. Developing a perspective on such societal phenomena can become a valuable tool for practical work.

In anthroposophical view, evolution now tends to shift this inner-soul developmental capacity before the age of 28 over the next centuries. This means that today we can sometimes already observe this ›developmental endpoint› at the age of 27.1

Consequences of missed development

What does this mean for our understanding of age culture and medicine? We will encounter people who, on their life path after the age of 28 or even already after 27, could not do what might have been latent within them to develop. These can be ‹forgotten› ideals, values or life motives. From such life courses, people may grow who in later age lack the aura of maturity and wisdom. This makes them, at a first, fleeting encounter, seem uninteresting to younger people and can subsequently lead the environment to adopt a loveless attitude. Unfortunately, the general attitude towards old age in Central European society is affected by these circumstances.

Geriatric medicine means learning to understand these ‹darkened› areas of a biography and, behind the need for help, compassionately sensing the person who perhaps had difficult life conditions and could not find their self-initiated impulse – possibly due to catastrophic contemporary historical conditions and transgenerational traumas. Those who adopt this perspective form an approach for their own willingness to help.

Above all, the attitude and intention can arise to stimulate or promote a certain inner development, as individually possible, in every needy elderly person. This should also be a reason for the rehabilitative approach in old age, which generally focuses more on functional independence that delays the need for care somewhat.

A happy childhood tends to enable a healthy old age

These thoughts address the human biography. Childhood and youth life circumstances are reflected in old age and manifest in psychological or even physical conditions. A well-known example from research is the long-term ‹Nun Study›2: its results showed that a happy childhood is a strong prognostic factor for a healthy old age.

Such a connection raises significant questions in reverse, shedding light on health in general and health in traumatised societies. Rudolf Steiner's indications of such connections have been known for over 100 years,3 but have hardly entered conventional medicine. Evidence for such connections also requires perseverance and appropriate research designs.4 There are still too few of these, but the indications are accumulating.

Introducing such aspects into age culture and medicine is a demand of the times, because only on such a knowledge basis can societal processes be changed. Early childhood education and schooling are health factors for the entire lifespan. Elderly care therefore depends on what happened in upbringing about 70 to 80 years earlier. Figuratively speaking, elderly care can mean rescuing the child from the well into which they fell many decades ago.

Conceptually separating old age and illness

The image of deficient old age is superficial and often the cause of lovelessness in human interaction. Lovelessness in elderly care is a topic today, for example when violence prevention programmes must be introduced to maintain care quality in residential facilities. If we can understand that human life is a path of continuous development, then we have perspectives for effective support in the individual life stages.

Of course, there are also healthy elderly people whose resources are so strong that they remain independent into advanced age. These people represent a special societal resource. The societal problem lies with those who need help too early, who lose their independence earlier due to chronic illnesses, and who become dependent on medical care and nursing due to addiction, illness or forgetfulness.

It is therefore sensible to distinguish and conceptually separate old age and illness even in practical terms. While it is true that illness is more likely to occur in old age, old age and illness are fundamentally different.

Footnotes

[1] Rudolf Steiner: GA 177, 30 September 1917, 1999

[2] Deborah D. Danner, David A. Snowdon, Wallace V. Friesen: Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study, in: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001; 80(5): 804–813

[3] Rudolf Steiner: GA 306, 15 April 1923, 1989, page 28

[4] Elaine Holt: Acknowledging Creative Thinking Skills: Educating for a Creative Future, in: SSRN Electronic Journal, 2024