Abstract
A review article introduces mid-life crisis (MLC), a concept that has remained contro-versial. The origins of the concept related to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung; however, first systematic description of the problem as well as its name was brought up by the psy-choanalyst Elliott Jaques in the mid-sixties of the 20th century.
MLC occurs most often between 35 and 55 years of age. The prevalence widely ranges between 10-80% of the whole population.
The authors also describe developmental tasks for the middle age, psychology of the middle age and the concept of well-being. The symptoms of MLC are summarized.
In the final part of the article, the authors closely focus on three key studies on the topic of MLC.