Self Narratives Of Difficult Life Experiences In Adulthood

First published in 2006. This is Volume 3 of the Official Journal of the Society for the Study of Human Development from 2006. It includes a special edition collection of articles covering second chances as transformative stories, looking at the redemptive self, emotion and transformational processing, narrating self in the past and the future, low income fathers and prison conversions and the crisis of self-narrative.

Fifteen years ago, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett proposed emerging adulthood as a new life stage at ages 18-29, one distinct from both the adolescence that precedes it and the young adulthood that eventually follows. Rather than marrying and becoming parents in their early 20s, most people in developed countries now postpone these transitions until at least their late 20s, spending these years in self-focused explorations as they try out different possibilities in their education, careers, and relationships. Since Arnett proposed his theory of emerging adulthood in 2000, it has turned into a full-fledged academic field, and the ideas have been applied in practical areas as well, such as mental health and education. The Oxford Handbook of Emerging Adulthood brings together for the first time the wealth of theory and research that has developed in this new and burgeoning field. It includes chapters by many prominent scholars on a wide range of topics, such as brain development, relations with friends, relations with parents, expectations for marriage, sexual relationships, media use, substance use and abuse, and resilience. The chapters both summarize the existing research and point the way to new prospects for research in the years to come.

"Life and Narrative examines the perennial mystery of how persons encounter, manage, and inhabit a self and a world of their own--and others'--creation and the ramifications of such creations. From literary and social science perspectives, this volume grapples with the process of how life and narrative interact"--

Identity is defined in many different ways in various disciplines in the social sciences and sub-disciplines within psychology. The developmental psychological approach to identity is characterized by a focus on developing a sense of the self that is temporally continuous and unified across the different life spaces that individuals inhabit. Erikson proposed that the task of adolescence and young adulthood was to define the self by answering the question: Who Am I? There have been many advances in theory and research on identity development since Erikson's writing over fifty years ago, and the time has come to consolidate our knowledge and set an agenda for future research. The Oxford Handbook of Identity Development represents a turning point in the field of identity development research. Various, and disparate, groups of researchers are brought together to debate, extend, and apply Erikson's theory to contemporary problems and empirical issues. The result is a comprehensive and state-of-the-art examination of identity development that pushes the field in provocative new directions. Scholars of identity development, adolescent and adult development, and related fields, as well as graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and practitioners will find this to be an innovative, unique, and exciting look at identity development.

This volume provides the theoretical, methodological, and praxis-driven issues in research on interpretive, critical, and cultural approaches to health communication. It includes an international collection of contributors, and highlights non-traditional (non-Western) perspectives on health communication.

Revised edition of: Oxford handbook of positive psychology and work / edited by P. Alex Linley, Susan Harrington, Nicola Garcea. -- Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Monisha Pasupathi and Kate C. McLean Where Have You Been, Where Are You Going? Narrative Identity in Adolescence How can we help youth move from childhood to adulthood in the most effective and positive way possible? This is a question that parents, educators, researchers, and policy makers engage with every day. In this book, we explore the potential power of the stories that youth construct as one route for such movement. Our emphasis is on how those stories serve to build a sense of identity for youth and how the kinds of stories youth tell are informed by their broader contexts – from parents and friends to nationalities and history. Identity development, and in part- ular narrative identity development, concerns the ways in which adolescents must integrate their past and present and articulate and anticipate their futures (Erikson, 1968). Viewed in this way, identity development is not only unique to adol- cence (and emergent adulthood), but also intimately linked to childhood and to adulthood. The title for this chapter, borrowed from the Joyce Carol Oates story, highlights the precarious position of adolescence in relation to the construction of identity. In this story, the protagonist, poised between childhood and adulthood, navigates a series of encounters with relatively little awareness of either her childhood past or her potential adult futures. Her choices are risky and her future, at the end, looks dark.