It is typical for women to experience midlife depression. This can be a depressed mood which can be experienced as having a bad day or being in a blue-mood. Another can be feeling depression as the result of a life experience that is typical of many women in midlife such as the death of a parent, spouse or a close friend; an empty-nest, divorce or job-loss. The most serious is a clinical depression which happens as a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain which can be a hereditary condition. The hormonal shifts that occur in midlife can exacerbate each of these types of depression.

What is midlife anyway? It is a term that elicits a lot of reactions from people in it, people approaching it and people past it. Midlife has gotten a bad rap. It is a psychological, emotional, spiritual, and cultural phenomenon that hits us in our late thirties to early forties and lasts until our 60s.

I’ve been reading a lovely set of books by Cathleen Rountree on women’s aging. I am now re-reading the interviews in her book “On Women Turning 50”. They make me smile. These women reflect what I so often see in my clients: that women in their 50s, 60s and 70s are some of the most content, empowered, creative and visionary women that I know. These women remind me of why I developed a fascination with midlife when I was in my twenties - I knew then that women in that age group were dynamic and exciting and were my role models, my mentors.

What is midlife anyway? It is a term that elicits a lot of reactions from people in it, people approaching it and people past it. Midlife has gotten a bad rap.