This paper presents and discusses, under a psychoanalytic perspective, some thoughts about the association of death with the human aging process. Firstly, Freudian concerns about death in culture are analyzed, with regard mainly to the strangeness and helplessness about elderly and death. A debate about the death in losses experienced in old age takes place in this work, which also proposes a discussion about grief symbolically lived in losses associated with the aging process. The losses lived in old age are related to the real death of friends and colleagues, to the body, to the end of work relations, and to social and family relationships. Such losses persist beyond the physical dimension, in a concrete sense, and also beyond the social, family and professional realms. After a bibliographic analysis, we conclude that the reflection about death and old age as a phenomenon strongly related to culture is pertinent and relevant. Therefore, an academic approach to the issue of human aging seems to demand a comprehension and discussion of the grief process lived in the successive experiences of losses in old age.
Aging; Death; Family Relations; Aged; Losses; Grief; Psychoanalysis