An adulthood worthy of the name is an internal process which may post-date the acquisition of a formal adult identity by many years.

We might be 92 and still, very slowly, be leaving adolescence behind.

私たちは92歳になっても、非常にゆっくりと、思春期を後にしているかもしれない。もし450歳まで生きるとしたら、私たちの多くはまだ大人の心の基本的な構成要素を身につけるのに苦労していることだろう。心理療法は、心理的な幼児期から成熟期への道を探ることに、他のどの分野よりも力を注いでいる。

If we live to be 450, many of us would still be struggling to acquire the fundamental constituents of a grown-up mind.

There is one definition of adulthood that it is worth focusing on in particular, adulthood as defined by the discipline of psychotherapy, which more than any other is devoted to working out a path from psychological infancy to maturity.

So here are twelve elements of an adult identity as seen through the lens of psychotherapy.

そこで、心理療法のレンズを通して見た、大人のアイデンティティの12の要素を紹介しよう。

One, we understand, at last, some of the ways in which our childhoods have shaped who we are today.

私たちはようやく、子供時代が現在の私たちを形成しているいくつかの方法を理解した。母親との関係は、女性の見方にどう影響しましたか？あるいは、父親との関係は、あなたの男性観にどのような影響を与えたのでしょうか？私たちは、自分は今よりもっと単純な人間かもしれないという誘惑に負けることはない。過去は関係ない、変えようと思えば自分の好きなように変えられる、意志の力がすべてだ、などと言うのはやめ、求める変化をもたらすには、都合のいいことよりもむしろもっと深く自分の心を探求する必要があるかもしれないということを控えめに

We are not confused by a question like, "How did your relationship with your mother influence how you see women?"

Or "How did your father shape your sense of what a man might be?"

Two, we give up on the temptations of believing that we might be simpler than we are.

We stop saying that the past doesn't matter, that we can change whatever we like about ourselves simply by wanting to do so, that willpower is everything,

and more modestly accept that we might need to explore our minds rather more deeply than would be convenient if we are going to be able to bring about the changes we seek.

Three, we develop a sober appreciation of how easy it is to lie to ourselves.

We have a sense of the massive hold of denial on our relationship to reality.

We appreciate how easily we may get sad when we are in fact angry, anxious when there is a specific thing that concerns us, or stern and proud when we are warding off vulnerability.

We get a measure of our powerful wish to evade ourselves.

Four, we learn to tell others with slightly more accuracy what is really going on inside us.

私たちは、自分の内側で実際に起こっていることを、もう少し正確に他人に伝えられるようになる。

We don't expect to be understood without speaking.

話さなくても理解されるとは思っていない。被害妄想や怒りを、誰かに聞こえるように翻訳することを学ぶ。拗ねることも少しは減る。

We learn to translate our paranoia and rage into something that someone else will be able to hear.

We sulk a little less.

Five, we understand, when we aren't tired, the difference between what someone meant to do to us and what we experienced at their hands.

疲れていないときには、誰かが私たちにしようと意図したことと、私たちが彼らの手によって経験したことの違いを理解する。私たちが経験したすべての傷は、私たちを傷つけようとする意識的な欲望によってもたらされたものではないことに気づく。自分の心の奇妙さを許す。私たちは、自分がいかに奇妙な存在であるか、どんな奇妙な考えが常に意識の中を飛び交っているか、空想や夢がもたらす気の遠くなるような驚き、そして精神生活の絶え間ない浮き沈みを、ほとんど喜ぶことを学ぶ。私たちは自分自身を非難したり、他人のそれを検閲したりはしない。私

We realise that not every hurt we register was powered by a conscious desire to harm us.

Six, we forgive ourselves for the strangeness of our minds.

We learn to almost delight in how odd we are, what peculiar thoughts are constantly flitting through consciousness, the daunting surprises of our fantasies and dreams and the perpetual ups and downs of mental life.

We don't condemn this in ourselves or censor it too much in others.

We take comfort from knowing that there is a strong difference between a thought and an action.

Seven, we allow ourselves to get angry at certain things that might have happened around those who put us on the earth, but we don't stay stuck in a position of fury.

We hold in mind an uncomfortable but genuine balance of ideas that our progenitors were not necessarily bad, but that some genuinely difficult things might well have happened at their hands.

Eight, we accept that sometimes reality may be less awful than we assume it will be, because we appreciate how much of our difficult histories may be colouring the lenses through which we look at the world.

We accept that catastrophes don't happen as often out there as they do in our minds.

Nine, we accept how many of our moods rely on the vagaries of our bodies.

9.私たちの気分の多くが、私たちの身体の気まぐれに依存していることを受け入れる。私たちは睡眠時間をモニターするのが上手になる。早寝早起きに熱中する。午後9時を過ぎたら、誰とも重要な会話をしようとしない。

We get better at monitoring how much we sleep.

We become passionate about early nights.

We never try to have any significant conversations with anyone past 9pm.

Ten, we learn that we are not compelled to say everything that passes through our minds the moment it does so.

10.私たちは、心に浮かんだことをその瞬間にすべて口に出さなければならないわけではないことを学ぶ。人間関係を吹っ切り、新しい誰かと付き合いたいという願望を登録し、今はその思いを内に秘めておくかもしれない。私たちは、感じたことと、すべきこと、言うべきことの間に、もう少しゆとりを持てるようになる。私たちはゆっくりと動くことを学ぶ。

We might register a wish to blow up a relationship and take up with someone new and hold a thought inside for now.

We achieve a little more space between what we feel and what we need to do and say. We learn to move slowly.

Eleven, we get patient and encouraging towards those who are less advanced than we are.

11.私たちは、自分より進んでいない人たちに対して忍耐強くなり、励ます。私たちは、彼らがまだすべてを理解していないことを恨んだりしない。彼らの機嫌の悪さや怒りの下には、もっと希望に満ちた優しい何かが潜んでいるかもしれないと推測する。

We don't hold it against them that they haven't already figured everything out.

We guess that there might be something more hopeful and tender lurking beneath their bad mood or anger.

We remember how often people have cut us slack and cut them slack in turn. We know and get bored by how easy it is to condemn.

私たちは、人々がどれほど頻繁に私たちを甘やかし、逆に彼らを甘やかしたかを覚えている。私たちは、非難することがいかに簡単であるかを知っているし、飽きている。

Twelve, we remain aware that any progress we feel we have made is always liable to be temporary.

12.われわれは、われわれが達成したと感じている進歩は常に一時的なものであることを自覚している。

We hold our victories lightly.

私たちは勝利を軽んじている。新たな嵐がいつやってくるかもしれない。穏やかに展開する毎日に大いに感謝する。私たちは興奮を味わうことを失う。楽しく退屈な余生を過ごすことに何の抵抗もない。

A new storm may be along any moment.

We are extremely grateful for every day that unfolds calmly.

We lose our taste for excitement.

We have nothing against the idea of having a delightfully boring rest of our lives.