Women in midlife: decisions, rewards, and conflicts related to work and careers.

The author discusses the role of an occupation in the psychic economy of women in midlife and the diagnostic and therapeutic function of attention to work-related issues. Clinical examples are grouped according to commonly encountered patterns as these result from prevous developmental choices and as they show some of the possible repercussions during the middle years. In psychotherapy with midlife women it is important to address work-related issues in terms of the interplay among previous development, age-specific factors, and social realities and changes as well as neurotic factors.