# Age-related Gendered Diminishment: toward understanding and interventions for a common psychological experience in post-midlife women

## TL;DR

The paper introduces Age-related Gendered Diminishment, a psychological experience common in post-midlife women, and suggests ways to understand and address it.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is the conceptualization of AGD as an integrated psychological construct specific to post-midlife women.

## Key findings

- AGD is characterized by feelings of invisibility and inconsequentiality in post-midlife women.
- The paper proposes therapeutic interventions to help women construct generative identities.
- The phenomenon remains under-recognized in mental health contexts, suggesting a need for further research.

## Abstract

Building from clinical observations with women at midlife and beyond, Age-related Gendered Diminishment (AGD) is presented as an integrated construct for a common psychological experience characterized by feelings of invisibility and inconsequentiality for women after midlife. Etiological contributors are suggested and aligned to existing literature describing frequent psychological challenges of women at this stage of life; potential evolutionary and social roots are discussed; and the question of why this complex of symptoms remains under-recognized in mental health contexts is evaluated. Finally, therapeutic interventions aimed at the construction of potential generative identities are proposed with a call for further research to better understand and address this phenomenon.