1. Ages and Changes:
Master Class
Susan H. McFadden
Fox Valley Memory Project
Appleton, WI (USA)

2. Overview of the class
• Metaphors and the ways we think about
aging and the life span
• Erikson’s epigenetic theory
• Implications for persons living with
dementia
• Application of Baltes’s life span
developmental model to religion,
spirituality, and aging (if there’s time for
this…)

3. Sources of meaning in Western history
(from Cole, 1992)

4. Metaphors of the life span
(Cole, 1992)
CIRCLES
HILLS
SPIRALS

5. Christ-centered wheel of life, from a Psalter (1339) belonging to Robert de Lisle of
Yorkshire. “I perceive all ages at once; I rule all with reason.”

6. The Seven Ages of Life and the Wheel of Fortune, an anonymous
woodcut (ca. 1470).

7. The Ten Ages of Man, an engraving by Jorg Breu the Younger
(Augsburg, 1540).

8. The Life and Age of Woman, a print by A. Alden (1836).
“The virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.”

9. Life and Age of Man, Stages of Man’s Life from the Cradle to the
Grave, a print by Currier and Ives (ca. 1850).

10. Erikson’s Epigenetic Theory

11. Erikson’s Epigenetic Theory
• Trust and mistrust
• Autonomy and shame/doubt
• Initiative and guilt
• Industry and inferiority
• Identity and identity confusion
• Intimacy and isolation
• Generativity and stagnation
• Integrity and despair

12. Cut-away of nautilus shell
(photograph by Paul Licht)

13. Erikson and religion: Implications
for persons living with dementia
• Discovery of the numinous in the face of the
mothering person: ordering the world in hope
• Ritual and love
• The outcome of gaining a sense of identity:
fidelity (faith)
• The hard won wisdom of old age: living with
the dynamic relationship of integrity and
despair

14. Baltes’s (1987) life span development model
applied to religion, spirituality, and aging
• Development is life-long
• Multidirectionality
• Development involves gains and losses
• Plasticity (its range and its limits)
• Historical embeddedness
• Necessity of an interdisciplinary approach
• Contextualism: dynamic interaction among
developmental influences
– Age-graded influences
– History-graded influences
– Non-normative influences

15. Final thoughts and questions