DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

9.
A Conjectural Model of Early Adult Crisis
9.1 Introduction
The current chapter presents an overall synthesis of the findings from the three
studies, by encapsulating key common features of early adult crisis within a four
phase model. This model is a framework for the summarising the findings, and is also
a conjectural general model of early adult crisis, which is offered for validation on
different samples. The model takes into account phases of crisis and developmental
themes and integrates them into a process-based whole.
The data that contributed to the model from the three studies were collected
and analysed over a period of two years, and in order to produce the synthesis in this
chapter it was necessary to re-analyse transcripts and codes from all three studies.
This was done by re-reading transcripts, re-reading within-case analysis documents,
re-reading cluster analysis documents, by the creation of numerous provisional
diagrams (see Appendix L for an example), by the creation of case-ordered summary
matrices (see Appendix H) and by continuing to edit the reports of the three studies in
the prior three chapters.
9.2 The Model
Behind the multi-dimensional complexity and variety of the crises encountered
in this study, an invariant sequence of four phases was found, each of which has
defining features in four key areas: ‘life situation’, ‘experience’, ‘self and identity’
and ‘motivation’. Figure 9 overleaf gives a graphic depiction of the model as a whole.
The model is necessarily a simplification; boundaries between phases are not discrete
but overlap and haze into one another, and data on metaphors and descriptions of
transformation are not included. The model is a framework for understanding the
early adult crisis process, and in the same way as a map is not the territory it
represents, the model is not to be confused with the complicated domain that it
represents (Korzybski, 1948). Extra detail linking cases to the four phases is given in
Appendix H; there are matrices given for each of the four phase describing how that
phase manifests in all 22 participants.
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