Late adolescence and the transition to adulthood changes, new thinking and implications for mental h

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Late adolescence and the transition to adulthood
changes, new thinking and implications for mental
health and psychotherapy

• Stephen Briggs

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Discourses of late adolescence

• a. the transition to adulthood is getting longer,
  more complex, pluralised and uncertain
• b. the transition is more individualised and
  more open to risks and hazards as well as
  opportunities it is no longer prescribed
• c. adolescents are getting worse less well
  behaved, more anti social and having greater
  mental health problems

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Discourse 1

• Transitions are getting longer
• .and more uncertain

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The Mismatch of biological (mature reproductive
capacity) and psychological transitions (adult
roles)
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The transition to adulthood is getting longer.

• How was it then?
• e.g. Derek Miller (1969) Adolescents in a
  disturbed society
• Early, middle, late adolescence
• Preparing for adulthood at 18/19
  Adolescence as the age between a transient
  state
• Erikson identity as a solid and enduring
  outcome from adolescent moratorium leads to
  commitments for life
• (role confusion as a failure to develop an
  identity, rather than a realistic response to
  society)

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And Now?

• .. adolescence begins with puberty and completes
  with highly variable social transitions which
  are no longer prescribed (Patton and Viner 2007)
• The transition to adulthood involves crossing
  (and re-crossing) a series of boundaries seen as
  a series of parallel transitions
• Massive changes in social contexts of work and
  education patterns affect timings of transitions
  
• Leaving school
• Starting work
• Living away from parental home
• Setting up an independent home
• Beginning a family

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Ferri, Bynner, Wadsworth (2003) Three national
British birth cohort studies National Survey of
Health and Development (1946 birth cohort),
National Child Development Study (1958 birth
cohort) and the 1970 British Cohort study (1970
birth cohort).
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Transitions getting longer.Age at first child
men
100 75 50 25 0
100 75 50 25 0
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Age
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Age at first child women
100 75 50 25 0
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 Age
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Age at marriage
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Education rising involvement staying later

• Tertiary education qualifications

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(No Transcript)
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UK compared with others 1990( 2006 FULL Time
education)

• Participation in education and/or training ( age
  group) Labour Force Survey

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Longer transitionsand more individualised

• The myth of the orderly transition
• The predictable family-based patterns of entry
  into the labour market in the 1946 cohort give
  way to the more individualised transitions of
  the later cohorts relying more heavily on
  personal resources. (Ferri et al 2003)
• Compare transitions in other societies e.g.
  Lesotho (Ansell 2004)
• Traditional transitions patterns fixed,
  universal, no significant risk of failure
• Greater choice, flexibility introduced with
  secondary education transitions become
  postponed

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No change at the top persistence of class
differences in education.Women in higher
education by social class
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Inequalities increasing Fast track and slow
track transitions (G.Jones) 2006)

• Slow Track
• Staying on in education (until 30 or later)
• Many semi-independent statuses requiring parental
  support
• Problematic for those without middle class models
  of parental support
• Can result in broken or fractured transitions
• Mental health issues arise
• Acquiring social capital

• Fast Track
• Leaving education on or before min. age
• Risks of unemployment, poor wages
• NEET
• Early family formation
• Higher anti-social behaviour rates
• Social exclusion
• (Early achievement of adulthood more likely to
  mean premature loss of childhood)
• Lack of social capital

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High
Extended transition To adulthood
Social Capital
Low
Accelerated transition to adulthood
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Discourse 2Transitions have become
individualised the impact on identity
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Identity in the risk society

• Concept of risk society generated by Ulrich
  Beck (1992) and Giddens (1990, 1991)
• The individual becomes the reproduction unit for
  the socialwhen structures and solidarities have
  broken down (Beck 1992)
• Calculative approach to self reflexive
  biography making in risk societies
• E.g. Giddens Living in the risk society means
  living with a calculative attitude to the open
  possibilities of action, positive and negative,
  with which, as individuals and globally, we are
  confronted in a continuous way in our
  contemporary social existence (1991 28)

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Get with it

• Recent applications of individualisation to young
  people e.g. Thomas Johannsson 2007
• Identity characterised by fluidity, openness,
  multiple identifications, reflexivity,
  continuous project of the self
• Get with the new opportunities (information,
  cyberspace) or be marginalised
• Whats in it for me? as basis for decision
  making

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A new phase emerging adulthood?

• Jeffrey Arnett (2000) USA young people in
  their twenties are on the threshold of
  adulthood
• Survey data What does it mean to make the
  transition to adulthood? answered in process
  terms (i.e. out of synch with structures/
  ritualised transitions to adulthood)
• Accepting responsibility for oneself
• Making independent decisions
• Becoming financially independent
• Standing alone as a self sufficient person
• developing greater concern for others
• avoiding behaviour that might harm others.

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Paradoxes of individualisation in the extended
transition to adulthood

• Individualised transitions are more open to
  risks, especially the risk of failure risks are
  unevenly distributed in society
• Education becomes a significant marker for
  success, widening choices and horizons and
  possibilities for failure
• Illusion of control epistemological fantasy
  (Furlong and Cartmel 1997). Particularly relevant
  to post-education young people. (train versus car
  journey) what are the limits of agency?
• Loss of responsibility and autonomy increased
  dependence on parental support, especially
  financial dependence and independence interact
  in new and varied combinations (Thomson 2004)
• Increased vulnerability to mental ill health
  impact of uncertainty, variability of supports,
  impact of broken structures, e,g, families,
  communities

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Psychosocial accounts of agency in risk
societies detailing the theory

• Walkerdine et al Growing Up Girl Thomson et
  al (2004) Inventing adulthoods biographical
  case studies
• Conscious and unconscious strategies short-
  term (coping), longer term
• Young people show oscillation between different
  biographies of self, affected by
  success/failure
• Turning points/critical moments in identity
  making
• Stagnant/damaged or progressive/repairing
  transitions influence identities (Bynner 2005)
• Relational (youve got to think of someone else
  now) as well as individualistic transitions
• Being subject to or subject of risks
  (internal, interpersonal and social).

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Model of identity making from Thomson et al 2004
Access to social, cultural, emotional, financial
resources (capital)
Degree and type of investment in types of adult
identity
Agency
Investment ?----- Recognition competency
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A potential split Relational and individualistic
aspects of identity

• Relational ideas about adulthood
• You have to think about someone else now
  (Thomson 2004)
• Arnetts respondents

• Individualistic ideas about adulthood
• Whats in it for me? (Johannsson 2007)
• Reinventing biographies
• Continuous project of self

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Discourse 3 Are Adolescents getting worse?
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Are adolescents getting worse?

• Thesis of the deterioration of adolescent mental
  health is media-led and constitutes a moral panic
  (Cohen 1973, 1980, 2002)
• Evidence of research Collishaw et al 2004
• And Inquiries, e.g. truth hurts (Camelot
  Foundation)
• Thus adolescents are at risk of a range of
  psychosocial disorders substance abuse,
  self-harm and suicide, violence, depression,
  eating disorders, obesity
• Plus teenage pregnancy, AIDS etc

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Evidence is mixed for whether rates of mental
disorder have increased during the past decades
(Patel et al 2007)
Increased rates of suicide In adolescence in
China and India correlate with rapid social
change
85 teenagers agree with the statement Im
happy with family life (Future Foundation
Survey 2002)
Poverty and social disadvantage are strongly
associated with mental disorder
We wish to emphasise that most young people do
not have any mental disorder even most of
those who face severe adversities (Patel et al
2007)
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Folk devils and moral panics

• Moral panics are media driven
• Set the agenda
• Transmit the images
• Break the silence/make the claim
• a permanent moral panic resting on a seamless
  web of social anxieties (2002 xxix)
• Risks and moral panics are naturally connected
• - failure of risk factor model
• (being in a low risk category for a disease you
  are actually suffering)
• Allocation of blame is intrinsic to moral panic
• Distorts taking some things too seriously, some
  not seriously enough

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Folk Devils

• Mods and rockers, punks, skinheads, football
  hooligans, muggers, mobsile phone snatchers,
  ecstasy, other drug takers, Amy Winehouse, child
  abusers, welfare cheats, single mothers, refugees
  and asylum seekers,
• Young, working class, violent males
• An underclass of depressed young women

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Folk Devil The violent avenger (Stuart Hall
1988)
Wanted CCTV images of three of the train
gang Students beaten by train steamers Rob Singh,
Crime ReporterES 23.01.08
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The current crisis of adult- adolescent
relatedness to intervene, or let time
curesplitting risks from growth

• Risks
• Are harbingers of future long-standing problems
  and intervention is necessary to reduce or remove
  risks
• Are threats to life, security and the welfare of
  professionals
• Projected fear of adolescent emotionality in the
  discourse about worsening adolescent mental health

• Growth
• Recognising that, perhaps with help, within the
  adolescent there is the potential for development
• Interventions aim to facilitate growth, enabling
  the adolescent to engage with the adolescent
  process
• Projected denial of risks, and the oppressive
  social situations of some adolescents

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The crisis of adult-adolescent relatedness
buying into the risk culture in risk societies

• Adults
• fear adolescent sexuality and violence
• forget their own adolescence (Jacobs 2000)
• buy into risk assessments in risk societies
  mixing categories by counting risks
• .are rivalrous the constant stories of teenage
  violence and teenage sexuality and the reactions
  of outraged protest

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....force upon one the realization that
prominent sections of the adolescent population
and the adult population alike are engaged in the
warlike activity of .

• .acting out their Oedipal rivalry

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Implications for service delivery

• Many countries fail to put sufficient emphasis
  on the special needs of adolescents.they are
  either treated the same as children or share
  facilities with adults (Kleinert 2007)
• Multidisciplinary services need to be configured
  to fit with the period of late adolescence/
  emerging adulthood i.e. 14/16-25/30. The cut off
  for adult services at 18 is illogical and
  damaging
• Services need to be responsive to the range and
  characteristics of transitions, and thus
  sensitive to the perspectives of young people
• Beyond risk assessment integrating risks and
  growth

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Implications for psychotherapy

• Need for focus on working with transitions
  internal impact of social contexts
• Recognition of repeated and partial transitions
  not expecting a traditional all at once move
  into adulthood
• Recognition that fast track transitions are a
  recipe for future problems not evidence of
  maturing
• Need for structure and time limits (for therapy)
  to enable management of an extended (and
  piecemeal) transition
• Recognition and response to parallel transitions
  to adulthood looking at the quality of
  transitions
• Focusing on positioning as more adult (with
  gains and costs) in specific domains (work,
  relationships, politics, parenting, studying)
• Focus on plurality, hyphenating, fluidity of
  movement between subject positions