Old Age, Time, and the Space of the Home: A Qualitative Research Study During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Marina Lacatena, Massimiliano Sommantico

Abstract


This qualitative study analyzes old age, time, and the space of the home by focusing on the mechanisms of mirroring and symbolization. Throughout the subject’s life, these two mechanisms have shaped the house and existence within it. By investigating mirroring and symbolization, starting with discussion on the theme of the house, we can further unpack emotional data that are embedded within this dialogue. To this end, 3 men and 3 women (between 75 and 90 yrs.) participated in a Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI) during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions; the participants’ houses were the setting. Two general hypotheses guided this study: a) that the ability to contain emotions, provided early in life by the maternal function, was transposed in later life to the space of the home, and b) that the ability to be alone was strongly pervaded by the living conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Five major themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews:  origins, the body, loneliness, death, and the influence of the public health emergency on the experience of the present. Questions of reflexivity and countertransference in psychoanalytically-informed qualitative research are discussed. The results indicate that, despite the exacerbation of loneliness due to the pandemic, the elderly continue to show the emotional intensity of their living spaces and the juxtaposition between the memory of the present and the memory of life in general, thus contradicting the predominant stereotypical image of old age, which focuses only on vulnerability.

Keywords


Old age; Space; Home; Free associations; Defended subject; Clinical psychology.

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.13129/2282-1619/mjcp-3400

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