DOI: https://doi.org/10.36347/sasjm.2026.v12i05.027

Pages: 513-524

Speaking of the bodily self doesn’t simply refer to the subject's mere biological perception of the body, but to the experience or the psychic representation, - that is, the lived experience - of this body as the basis of their identity, which ensures their presence in the world. Aging, an phenomenon of decline for the subject, thus refers to the impact of time on the person, both physically and psychologically. In their work, numerous authors such as Freud, Schilder, Lacan, Dolto, and Anzieu present the body as the support of the subject's psychic identity and the basis of their narcissistic foundations. Aging is a holistic process that leads to difficulties in adaptation, a sensorimotor slowing that has a significant impact on the intellectual domain, on memory, and on the affective domain (the effect of age on personality, with its repercussions on the psyche and on social status). It is from this perspective that Liliane Israël (1982, Psychology and Psychological Aging. Gerontology and Society, No. 22 Cahiers de la Fondation nationale de Gérontologie, Psychological Aging. Age and Personality) emphasizes this important point: "psychological aging must be addressed by taking into account (...) the somatic effects of senescence and its psychological implications" (p. 5). Inseparable from psychological aging, and even preceding or causing it, physiological aging leads to bodily changes that appear through a person's psychology in relation to his personality and his environment. These changes can then weaken the body image as well as the continuity of the individual's identity, since everyone has his own way of aging. This takes on an important dimension in rapidly changing African societies, and specifically in Cameroon, insofar as the psychic adjustments imposed by the weakening of the body and the preservation of identity are also part of a socio-cultural dynamics where the symbolic status traditionally reserved for the elderly as well as their dignity are called