A transitional life stage, typically between the ages of 45 and 65, characterized by a growing desire to rediscover purpose, reimagine identity or find deeper meaning in life. While not recognized by scientists as a formal developmental stage, the term has gained currency in popular culture and is sometimes compared to adolescence, a phase accompanied by its own hormonal changes — menopause for women, and andropause in men — as well as questioning of societal expectations and redefining of one’s role.

In popular usage, middlescence describes a phase when some adults develop new abilities or revive dormant talents or interests from earlier in their lives. “People have the agency to continue to grow and learn about themselves and say ‘I’ve got the energy to do this,’ says Barbara Waxman, a gerontologist, leadership coach and member of SCL’s Advisory Council. Waxman says her clients often ask themselves whether the decisions they made when they were younger have to last, leading them to explore creative pursuits or make sharp career changes, citing a CEO who enrolled in divinity school. “We tend to start to shed our dependence on external affirmation and wonder, ‘If I’m not proving something, what do I want to do?’”

The term was coined in a satirical New York Times article in 1965, comparing middle-aged adults to moody teenagers. The term appeared sporadically in scientific literature in the 1970s and ’80s, building on the ideas of psychoanalyst Erik Erikson’s eight-stage theory of psychosocial development. Erikson classified middle age as a time when some adults experience generativity (nurturing or serving others) while others struggle with a sense of stagnation. These ideas were expanded upon by Daniel Levinson, a psychologist at the Yale University School of Medicine who studied men in midlife, and psychiatrist Roger Gould, whose work focused on adult development. Levinson described middlescence in his book The Seasons of a Man’s Life as “a term that carries a fine mixture of sympathy and depreciation.”

Journalist and author Gail Sheehy drew heavily on the ideas of Gould and Levinson in her 1976 bestseller Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, characterizing the midlife transition not necessarily as a time of crisis, but also as an opportunity for growth. (Gould later sued Sheehy for plagiarism, and the case was settled out of court.) Despite the controversy, in Passages and her 1995 sequel, New Passages, Sheehy popularized the concept of midlife as a time of personal growth and “second adulthood” for millions of readers.