Transition to Adulthood: Action, Projects, and Counseling

The transition to adulthood involves, for most individuals, moving from school to work, establishment of long-term relationships, possibly parenting, and a number of other psychosocial transformations. Now more than ever, there is a concern within popular and research literature about children growing up too soon or too late or failing to realize changes associated with being adult. With this in mind, the book intends to answer a series of timely questions in regard to transition to adulthood and propose a wholly new approach to counseling that enables youth to engage fully in their lives and achieve their best.

Active Transition to Adulthood: A New Approach for Counseling will discuss the authors’ work on the transition to adulthood (including early and late adolescence) from an entirely innovative perspective – action theory. Over a period of 10-15 years the authors have collected substantial data on adolescents and youth in transition, and will present an approach to counseling based on these data and cases.  The action theory perspective in which the authors have grounded their work addresses the intentional, goal-directed behavior of persons and groups that is expressed through particular actions, longer-term projects, and life-encompassing careers. In this book, both transition to adulthood and counseling will be covered in the language of goal-directed action. In this way both transition and counseling reflect and capture the action, projects, and careers in which families, youth, and clients are engaged and use to construct on-going identity and other narratives.

Richard A. Young, Ph.D., is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is a Fellow of the American and Canadian Psychological Associations, a Registered Psychologist in British Columbia, and President of Division 16 (Counselling Psychology) of the International Association of Applied Psychology. He is a founding member of the Aeschi Group on Meeting the Suicidal Person. His current interests include the application of action theory and the qualitative action-project method to a variety of research topics, including the transition to adulthood, families, career development, health, and suicide.

Sheila K. Marshall is an Associate Professor of Family Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her research investigates adolescent-parent interactions and the transfer and uptake of rights and responsibilities during the transition to adulthood. She is particularly interested in the management of information between adolescents and parents and how it, in turn, influences actions such as identity construction and resource sharing.

Ladislav Valach is Oberassistant at the Institute of Psychology, Psychopathology and Clinical Intervention, University Zurich and a private practitioner. He is a founding member of the Aeschi Group on Meeting the Suicidal Person. His current interests include questions on organization and flow of actions, projects and long-term processes such as career, health, suicide, work, and life enhancement. Together with his colleagues he deals with practical, theoretical and methodological issues in his writing, teaching, discussing, counseling and psychotherapy.