Aspectos psicanalíticos da solidão na vida da pessoa idosa: uma revisão integrativa

Abstract

With an increasingly large elderly population, it is necessary to understand the challenges at this stage of life, to ensure a sustainable and dignified life for these individuals. The valorization of an individualistic society, the grieving processes, the bodily changes, the forced isolation, are some of the factors that intensify loneliness in the elderly, which can become depression or even a passage to the act of suicide. Seeking theoretical bases in approaches already consolidated in psychology, such as psychoanalysis, can contribute to the theme from the perspective of the timeless unconscious, which enables the valorization of a space for the elderly to speak and their sufferings that appear in their discourse and are often disregarded and associated with a common factor of age. Taking these aspects into consideration, the present work seeks to answer the question of the resarch problem about "what contributions of psychoanalysis are available in the literature regarding loneliness in the life of the elderly?" and to analyze the contributions of psychoanalysis available in the literature on loneliness in old age. To meet these objectives, the work used the bibliographic review of integrative analysis, using Scielo, Capes periodicals and Pepsic as databases. The descriptors used were "old age OR elderly person OR elderly OR aging AND loneliness OR loneliness", "old age OR elderly person OR elderly OR aging AND psychoanalysis" and "psychoanalysis AND old age OR elderly person OR elderly OR aging AND loneliness OR loneliness". In the end, with the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, it was possible to obtain seven articles that were read in full and used to compose the results and discussion. From the full reading of the articles that made up the final sample, three main thematic categories were defined: grief and loneliness as we age, the body and the encounter with reality, and forced isolation in a COVID-19 pandemic. Each category presents a unique articulation on how loneliness permeates the life of the elderly based on psychoanalysis. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the aging process permeates different forms of mourning, maintained by different social factors that reinforce loneliness, but do not cease to update the symptom in an unconscious that remains active. Thus, it was possible to verify with the results and discussions in articulation with the literature that it is through this timeless unconscious that psychoanalysis listens to the individual in the aging process, to relieve suffering through speech.