DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

executive, Angela was an office administrator and Camilla was working in the print
industry. None had had any children at the time of interview and only Lynne has been
married.
Phase 1 – Early Crisis: Locked In
Like with the prior cluster, early crisis is defined by pressure, constriction,
dissatisfaction, a loss of control and a loss of a clear sense of self. But in this cluster
the over-riding source of the problem is work, not home.
Shelving Passion for Practicality
All four women in this cluster described a passion which they had long held,
but had not been expressed for many years due to their all-consuming career. Mary’s
passion was philosophy, but she was persuaded to study and pursue law as it was a
more practical qualification. Angela’s passion was art. This went unused in her job
as an office administration assistant. The fire of this passion was initially dampened
during a hard time at secondary school when she lost all confidence in her artistic
abilities and failed her Art O-Level. She cites this sense of failure as the reason why
she didn’t pursue her art and go to art college, but instead took an office job. Camilla
described having always been fascinated in caring and psychology, but up until the
crisis had never pursued this fascination in any active sense. Lynne’s passion had
been poetry, but she never had time for it in her HR executive role.
Like Rats in a Cage
Before her crisis, Lynne was in executive HR, in a high-level international role
for a large company, which she describes as the “job from hell”. To add to this, she
starts an affair with one of her colleagues in her immediate team at work, while being
married. Her crisis emerges in her late thirties. She describes her situation, with all
the pressures of the job and the affair, as being “like rats in a cage” (p.4).
Angela was an administrative assistant at a textile company as her crisis emerges.
Problems start when a new aggressive director starts bullying her. The rest of her team leave
due to the difficulties of working with this new director, but she stays in this highly pressured
and confrontational environment. This brings on a crisis at age 34. Angela said that the
office she was working in started to feel “like a prison” (p.4), and that she felt as if she was
“suffocating”.
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