DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

as part of the psychiatric care system with a diagnosed mental health ‘illness’,
and therefore no longer see their problem as a crisis reaction to life’s
developmental vicissitudes, but rather as a chronic disorder. Secondly such
persons may not emerge from the episode with a clear end point and so be able to
reflect on it in retrospect, which was a criterion for participation. Thirdly, such
persons simply may not be motivated to talk about their episode to a researcher,
as the story does not cast them in a positive, transformative or generative light,
but is simply a story of decline.
It is therefore a safe assumption that those who came to speak to me were
constructive crisis copers – they had found the internal and external resources to
move through crisis. A valid criticism of the study is therefore that it is looking
at only one side of crisis; the positive side when crisis becomes a stimulus for
growth and change. However such a collection of reports of constructive crisis
coping is empirically powerful in its own right. The clinical literature is full of
reports of descent into chronic suffering or destructive behaviour after major
stressful life events. The current thesis provides a counterpoint to this; it presents
a group of stories showing what crisis and adversity can be if navigated through
successfully; it shows how suffering can be transmuted into discourses of
liberation, expansion and transformation. It suggests that individuals can turn
suffering into growth by making real and substantial changes that allow them to
pursue coherence, assertiveness, purpose and authenticity, and therefore might
suggest a therapeutic path for coping with life crisis. This therapeutical
application is discussed later in the chapter.
Generalisability is a key dimension of validity in research that aims to
generate a theory or model such as the current thesis. Generalisability is not just
improved by the diversity or quality of sample, but is also affected by the
population to which generalisations are attempted. The more abstract the
population parameters, the more tenuous the generalisation. In this study, the
sample was found from amongst the British white urban middle classes, and I do
not attempt to generalise past this population group. All were Caucasian
(including one Italian, one Mexican and one American), and all were middle class
(arguably except for Frances, who was a waitress living with a drug dealer at the
time of crisis). In different socio-economic groups and different cultures one will
surely find different features of crisis. For example, young people in lower socio-
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