DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

“You know, I’d failed, it was the sense of failure. She was quite a remarkable
woman, a very beautiful woman, and to lose her was a loss of prestige, at a superficial
level.” (p.2)
Phase 3 - Late Crisis: Exploration
The inner and outer search that was found in the female clusters after the
separation period is also found in this male cluster, in similar form.
Looking Round for Alternatives
In response to the emotional upheaval of separation from the old life, positive
but tentative new steps are taken towards building a new life structure. Prior to any
firm new commitments, this is a period of experimentation with lifestyle and self in
which the person may engage in therapy, may go back to study, and may attempt
various new activities in an endeavour to better understand who they are and what
they want out of life. The mindset of the experimental phase is one of possibility,
which is in stark contrast to the mindset of obligation that dominates in Phase 1:
“So I think I’ve mellowed out with those thoughts and recognised that there are lots
and lots of ways one can live one’s life. There was a pressure on me to conform, well
I might be gay but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a long term relationship.” (George,
p.7)
George explores a number of new possibilities after leaving his group of
friends and his job, leading to a new outlook on relationships and a new part-time
degree in psychology.
With the new sense of freedom that Neil experienced upon leaving his wife
and job came a period of experimentation, which he was happy to admit was a kind of
“second adolescence” (p.16), having missed out on experimentation in his twenties.
For Neil this involved a simultaneous inner “opening” of two different parts of him: a
hedonistic self and a generative self. The hedonistic phase involved buying two new
houses in quick succession, buying a Porsche, crashing it, and having a number of
short relationships with women.
“To start with it was a bit hedonistic. I paid my own air fare just to have two nights in
Tokyo going crazy. I lived in Reigate, I ate out most nights and I bought myself two
houses, I bought a house and it just didn’t work out, so I just took the keys back to the
estate agents. I bought a Porsche, and managed to crash it on Frimley Road.” (p.12)
Simultaneously, and in some contradiction to this new hedonistic self-indulgent
impulse is a concurrent new desire to work with people and to “give something back”
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