2011 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 422-433
Recently, as the average life expectancy has been rapidly increasing, a theoretical framework is required to illuminate psychological development in old age. In order to explore the developmental process, this study focused on the oldest old, individuals aged 85 and older supposed to achieve psychological development and aimed to describe the experience in daily life of the oldest-old. Interview surveys were carried out with 8 oldest-old adults, and a qualitative analysis was conducted from the viewpoint of interpretive phenomenology. The author elicited meanings or values on physiological, social, and psychological dimensions of life in narratives of the oldest old, and classified the transcripts into meaning units. The following four themes emerged from the analysis: “Being connected”, “Realizing everything changes”, “Finding continuity”, and “Creating unique possibilities”. On the basis of the result, the author interprets that life of the oldest old can be understood as existential experience of being situated in objective facts and of transcending dualistic thinking: connected versus unconnected, changing versus unchanged, capable versus incapable, and so forth. It is speculated that future research requires a transcendental perspective on aging in order to comprehend the existential dimension of life of the oldest old.
