I think the third thing is trying to display your value, your desirability and again I think this can be done in very gender specific ways. For women its appearance; perhaps getting plastic surgery and being ‘beautiful’ where as for men it tends to be about success; spending money on a nice car and so on.
- Life has become generally more fast paced and hectic than it was say 20 years ago, we work and play a lot harder than we used to. Do you think mid-life crisis’s are becoming happening at a younger age and if so, that these reasons add to this?
As a psychologist I have seen a few of people over the last couple of years that are dealing with exactly what you have just said. I think a lot of this has to do with the whole work culture that we have and the whole notion of happiness linking to success, and that we have to have succeed at whatever cost.
But then you have to ask yourself what success is defined as. Success is never considered as being happy, but rather an accumulation of things which means I do think we are going to see mid - life crises happening younger and younger.
In a lot of ways I do think that this is due to the fact that we are work driven and focused on speeding through life. You hear of some children going through puberty aged nine or ten now and children that are having sex at aged twelve or thirteen!
If you add on to these facts that we have a very work orientated culture, by the time we reach our thirties it’s no surprise we feel like that!
- Have you got any tips for women with partners similar to Hank Moody on how to keep them in line and if you were Hank Moody’s girlfriend what would you do differently to keep him in check?
He seems almost like a lost cause, but I think clearly it is a self esteem issue and I guess the shrink in me would come out and I would see what I could do to help and where he feels he’s lacking.
I would look at what his behaviour is giving him and what does it substitute. In the show he has sex with a 16 year old daughter of a friend I would ask him ‘what is that giving you?’. Is it giving him a sense of control or a sense of strength or purpose?
Unless he was prepared to negotiate then I’d also make it clear that unless things change that I would walk away but I’d try and help him get through it.
- We surveyed over 2,000 people to try and find out a bit more about their sexual habits and behaviour and some of the results were quite interesting. Katie Price and Sarah Harding came out with the lowest number of votes when asked which female celebrities people would like to sleep with do you think that men are now looking for a girl-next-door type to settle down with rather than a party animal?
It could be that, also I think given the financial crisis that we are in at the moment, anybody that is seen as part of that circle of superficiality and this idea of a ‘celebrity driven’ culture is going to be seen in a more negative light.
Over the last 18 months we’ve gone from celebrating people who seem to earn an awful lot of money, ie. celebrities, bankers etc to actually being suspicious of them.
I think the other part of it is that for a lot of men it’s to do with the chase and if a girl is seen as very available then perhaps it’s not seen as much as that notch on the bed that it once was as opposed to someone who is a little bit more disclosed.
- One of the most interesting results of this survey was that half as many men as women think that infidelity is a sign of a mid-life crisis - is that a typical response?
Yes absolutely! There is research to support this notion - that men considered infidelity to be when their wife was sleeping with another man, whereas women said above all it was when their partner had an emotional relationship with another woman.
The emotional connection for women, if the guy that you love is spending more hours on the phone to another women rather than you that’s going to hurt a lot more than a one-night stand.
- Our survey also revealed that most people believe the average age of a mid life crisis is 40- 45, would you say that is accurate?
I think it happens younger. For a lot of people I would say late thirties for all of the reasons that we have mentioned above. I think for women as well the whole biological clock has an effect on this and the pressure to have a family.
This summer, David Duchovny (The X Files) reprises his Golden Globe winning role as Hank Moody, the charming yet drug addled sex-aholic.
The second season sees him struggle with his multitude of addictions whilst raising his daughter with his on/off girlfriend Karen (Natasha McElhone - Ronin), as the shocking and sexy hit TV series Californication: Season 2 returns on DVD from August 10 2009.