DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

involves genuine integration of competing polarities. The masculine/feminine
dichotomy is navigated for the first time in an intra-psychic sense, so that men may
get in touch with their more feminine side, and women may allow their masculine side
out. This is the consequence of the upheaval of the Age 30 Transition and the new
equilibrium that is developed as a result. For many men, the 30s are focused on “the
ladder” – striving to advance in rank, income, power, fame and contribution, and their
focus on family is as much for a sense of successful provision as a sense of intimacy
and inclusion. The “settling down” period then culminates in the Mid-Life Transition
between 40 and 45, which again brings the potentiality of crisis, as the neglected parts
of the self rise to the surface and seek expression through a new and adapted life
structure.
Sheehy (1977) considers the development in early adulthood involves an
interplay between the “Seeker Self”, which seeks separation, exploration and
individuality and the “Merger Self”, which seeks closeness and attachment to another.
If the Merger Self is over-emphasised, it can lead to excessive conformity, however it
is the same self that enables us to love intimately, share unselfishly and experience
empathy. If the Seeker Self predominates excessively, it will lead to accomplishment,
but also to a self-centred existence in which “efforts to achieve individual distinction
are so strenuous that they leave us emotionally impoverished” (1977, p.52). It is only
by getting the two sides to work in concert that eventually a person becomes capable
of both individuality and mutuality in early adult relationships.
In summary, Levinson, Lidz, White and Sheehy wrote that the domain of early
adulthood involves a particular predicament – if a young person is to bind into the
adult world, he/she must renounce some of his hard-won adolescent independence and
make commitments to a single career or single partner. However, it should be pointed
out that these theories of early adulthood were developed in the 1970s. The
intervening decades have seen changes in cultural norms with respect to partnership,
parenthood, occupation and gender identity that have substantially changed the social
context in which young people experience early adulthood. These changing
challenges have been discussed in some psychology and sociology literature and have
been clearly charted by National Statistics.
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