[Depression in middle age patient]

"Middle age of life" should be considered more as a psychological concept than a chronological one. It may be defined very roughly as the forties but the limits are variable within the age range 35-50 years. This period is often one of existential crisis marking the access to the age of maturity. This "transition", or "maturescence", confirms or modifies life orientations previously selected by the subject according to modalities that are sometimes difficult to live and assume, hence the frequency of depressions. Among internal modifications, there is an important change in the way time is lived; from then on, the subject becomes clearly aware of his past lifetime and of his remaining lifetime. Time has come for him to draw a balance, which involves looking at himself from a distance, interrogating himself about his previous choices, a feeling of confinement, often a relative degree of disillusion. The subject must discover for himself a new form of presence in the world. In parallel, the members of his family environment also change: parents become old, adolescents develop their social autonomy, husband or wife follows his/her own existential route in an individual mode. All such modifications often promote a loss of the subject's usual landmarks, a relative degree of puzzlement, sometimes even a destruction of pre-existing harmony that may impair the psychological balance of the subject. Promoted by anxiogenic conflicts due to changes, depressions frequently occur in the middle-age group, depending on the above fragilizing factors, the particular circumstances, and the subject's background.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)