Young Adult Counselling
Are you struggling to adapt to your newfound independence as you transition into adulthood? The phase known as "emerging adulthood" brings significant changes and challenges. If you're finding it hard to cope, you're not alone.
What is Emerging Adulthood?
Emerging adulthood is a distinct developmental phase characterized by several core challenges: establishing a secure personal identity, forming mature friendships and intimate relationships, reorienting family ties, building a core of ideological values, selecting a long-term vocation, and planning for the future.
The 5 Key Elements of Emerging Adulthood
1. Identity Exploration: This period involves exploring one's identity in the context of love, work, beliefs, and values, prompting questions like, "Who am I?" and "How do I fit in?"
2. Instability: Emerging adults often experience instability, frequently changing jobs and testing out various relationships as they seek meaningful work and a sense of purpose.
3. Self-focus: This phase is often the first time individuals can act independently without having to answer to others, essential for achieving self-sufficiency before taking on adult roles and responsibilities.
4. Feeling In-between: Many emerging adults feel neither fully adolescent nor fully adult, creating a sense of being "in-between" that can last for a significant period.
5. The Age of Possibilities: Emerging adulthood offers the chance to transform one’s life, break away from unhealthy family dynamics, and chart a better course, with most emerging adults optimistic about their future work and personal relationships.
Mental Health and Risky Behavior in Emerging Adulthood
This phase often involves balancing career building, school, finances, and significant life changes, which can lead to anxiety and depression. The pressures of college and adulthood can sometimes result in substance use and alcohol as coping mechanisms. Additionally, emerging adults are at higher risk for risky behavior due to their still-developing prefrontal cortex. This newfound freedom can lead to poor decision-making, including substance use, excessive alcohol consumption, and unsafe sexual activity. Seeking professional support through therapy or counselling is crucial when these issues arise.
The Benefits of Young Adult Counselling
Motivation
Counselling provides a safe environent allowing you to explore your place in the world and at the same time feeling valued understood and accepted by an impartial adult.
Exploration
It also helps you understand the root cause of your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and provide a safe space to you work through issues and empowers you to use what you have learned to find solutions to the issues you face.
Integration
Additionally it improves your self-confidence, overall mood, and self-esteem as you learn and strengthen vital skills such as emotion regulation, effective communication, empathy, assertiveness, and self-awareness.
Empowerment
Finally, learning to talk through problems with a counsellor also helps most young adults develop the skills and confidence to open up to others in their lives and develop better relationships.