DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

Coding Frame and Quotes
1. Background and contextual environment
1 st Order Codes with Illustrative Quotes
Codes
1a) Concealment of
inner world
1b) Under parental
control
Illustrative quotes and phrases
“I had had a very repressed childhood from my parents” p.1
“What I felt was something that I clutched on to from really quite early
in my childhood, and that’s a sense of my own self, a zest for life and
a desire to survive and get through come what may. And this kind of
enthusiasm, this energy, that I knew I always had, I had to hide that
from my parents” 2
“Developing, growing or exploring. Those are things that have always
been my key words, but with my background they’ve been key words
that have kept under wraps.” 1-2
“their hold over me.” 2
“in their clasp” 2
“they [the parents] were very controlling, very much focused on me
becoming the perfect daughter, a very high achiever.” P.1
“my every action was controlled by them [parents]” p.2
“So I was put into a good school, encouraged to perform and make
my unhappy parents happy.” 2
“they themselves were deeply unhappy in their marriage and their
existence and they were looking to external factors – ie. me.” P.2
“I moulded myself into being my mother’s perfect daughter – keeping
her happy.“ p.1
“Altogether it was a smooth transition to being my parents’ daughter
to being my husband’s wife.”
Re marriage: “We were kind of thrown together” 2
“He was foisted on me.” 2
“My parents wanted me to marry him” 2
1c) Introjected goals “as I should have a boyfriend as this is what people do.” 2
“I was still in the mode of thinking that I am just going to repeat my
parents life.” 3
“I was aiming for the same thing as my parents, I guess. To have a
long, healthy, happy marriage with children. The usual society
expectations that you get married, you have children, you have this
existence. That was my goal – to be a wife and a mother. There was
no goal for myself.” 11
1d) Bored to death “He was just boring.” 2
“It was all very safe, and something cosy and idyllic about it, but it was
dead.” 3
“About eighteen months after we married, it did reach a point where I
said to my husband – is this it then? Is this it for the rest of our lives?
This is like boring, l can’t do this, let’s have some change here.” 3
“My poor husband, what’s this doing to him, he just wants to stay
where he is and have a boring, quiet life, he just wants me to shut
up…” 5
“It was all very safe, and something kind of cosy and idyllic about it,
you know, but it was dead, it was empty and devoid of any passion or
spark or enthusiasm, any zest for opening up or exploring life or
anything outside of that cosy little existence. So whilst I had the
safety and I new that bought into very much how I had been brought
up, be with a man, let him look after you, be safe, I was dying inside, I
could feel that little flame of optimism in me just dying.” 3
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