Transition to Adulthood

Richard A. Young, Ph.D., is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is a Fellow of the American and Canadian Psychological Associations, a Registered Psychologist in British Columbia, and President of Division 16 (Counselling Psychology) of the International Association of Applied Psychology. He is a founding member of the Aeschi Group on Meeting the Suicidal Person. His current interests include the application of action theory and the qualitative action-project method to a variety of research topics, including the transition to adulthood, families, career development, health, and suicide. Sheila K. Marshall is an Associate Professor of Family Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her research investigates adolescent-parent interactions and the transfer and uptake of rights and responsibilities during the transition to adulthood. She is particularly interested in the management of information between adolescents and parents and how it, in turn, influences actions such as identity construction and resource sharing. Ladislav Valach is Oberassistant at the Institute of Psychology, Psychopathology and Clinical Intervention, University Zurich and a private practitioner. He is a founding member of the Aeschi Group on Meeting the Suicidal Person. His current interests include questions on organization and flow of actions, projects and long-term processes such as career, health, suicide, work, and life enhancement. Together with his colleagues he deals with practical, theoretical and methodological issues in his writing, teaching, discussing, counseling and psychotherapy.

From the reviews: "Much research on youth focuses on general patterns within populations or subpopulations and is not very helpful for understanding - let alone helping - individual young people. This book provides a powerful new framework for understanding individual youth as they take on the tasks associated with becoming adults - identity, love, career, life style, and meaning. This framework (approach) helps us think about how these tasks are negotiated in daily contexts - and particularly in and through relationships with significant others. Useful for both researchers and practitioners, this book could serve as an excellent text for a course on the transition to adulthood, adolescence, or related topics. It also includes excellent case examples that make the concepts/ framework tangible." - Reed W. Larson, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL "This extraordinary team of authors brings remarkable insight and years of research to bear on the many facets of the dynamic transition to adulthood. The book attends to the very social nature of this transition by skillfully applying an action theoretical perspective to compelling case material. This masterfully written book is destined to become a landmark. It is intellectual and at the same time accessible. Brilliant!" - Donna Schultheiss, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH "Richard Young and colleagues present an extremely restrictive, intellectualized, analytical model of psychological processes that occur during development. ... It is a conscious, purposeful attempt to devise a model of psychological functioning based on contemporary philosophical ideas and concerns. ... The literature reviews in the chapters illustrating the application of action theory to various realms (e.g., relationships, career, suicide) are well researched and informative. This book would be most appreciated by academics and scholars interested in the central subject matter and associated philosophies." (Judith Kingstone, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 56 (40), October, 2011)

• Transition to Adulthood: Introduction.- Transition to Adulthood as Goal-Directed Action.- Action and the practice of counseling for transitions.- Studying Transition Processes.- Relationships.- Emotion and the Transition to Adulthood.- Identity.- Family.- Work.- Culture.- Romantic Relationships.- Transition in the Context of Disability.- Suicide in the Context of the Transition to Adulthood.- Working with Narrative and Interpretation.- Using the Self-Confrontation Procedure in Counseling.