AACCS Young Adult Feature
Psalms and Ecclesiastes: Seasons of Life and the Young Adult (Page 1 of 4)
by Alan Y. Oda, Ph.D.
The following is adapted from a message presented to the Young Adult and College Fellowships of First Chinese Baptist Church of Fountain Valley, March 15, 2002.
There is no shortage of articles, whether in textbooks, journals or other writings, about growth and development during the early years (infants, toddlers, school-aged children, and adolescents). There isn't much, however, about life after the teenage years, although life after adolescence has its own triumphs, trials, and tribulations worth noting.
Perhaps the best-known description of the post-adolescence years is provided by Erik Erikson. In his "psychosocial theory of development," which continues to be cited in many writings about human growth and development, Erikson described personality and social development as a function of eight stages spread across the entire lifespan. Two of the stages of particular interest to young adults are: identity vs. identity diffusion (or role confusion), and intimacy vs. isolation.
Erikson calls the growth stage between puberty and the twenties (and perhaps beyond) identity achievement vs. identity diffusion. Before adolescence, children begin to learn a number of different roles - student, friend, older sibling, athlete, musician, and the like. During adolescence, it becomes important to sort out and integrate these roles into a single, consistent identity.1 The teenage years introduces the identity crisis. Erikson states that true maturity requires the resolution of crises that occur throughout the lifespan. The identity crisis describes the primary concern - and primary crisis - of teenage to young adult years.
The post-adolescent, according to Erikson, re-examines his/her beliefs, values, and ideas as part of establishing his/her own personal identity. This identity is formed and reformed through a process of refinement, repudiation, and readaptation from what the teen and young adult learned from parents, siblings, schools, church, and other people and institutions. It is an important part of the growth process to have beliefs and values that result from one's own struggle - one's own crisis - of trying to decide what is right and what is wrong based on personal reflection and critical thinking. Otherwise, the individual either grows up lacking the ability to make important decisions and judgments about moral and ethical issues, or is too easily swayed by the opinions of others. The individual who has weathered his or her identity crisis has a better idea of what s/he believes in and perhaps more importantly, can use these values and beliefs when it is time to make critical decisions later on in one's lifetime.