TITLE:
Risky Transitions. Vocational Development between Traumatic Biography and the Search for Identity
AUTHORS:
Julian Valentin Möhring, Dennis Schäfer, Burkhard Brosig
KEYWORDS:
Emerging Adulthood, Identity, Habitus, Precarious Career Choice, Psychoanalytic Social Case Work
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Applied Sociology,
Vol.11 No.12,
December
28,
2021
ABSTRACT: The article provides insights into the interaction between
different stages of identity formation in emerging adults with complex constellations
of biographical problems. They went through a program for professional qualification
with optional psycho-social counseling following completion of their compulsory
schooling. A very specific individuation is demanded of the subject in the transition
from youth to adulthood. Biographical interviews were conducted with a total of
10 participants aged 20 to 27 years, and 3 interviews were presented in detail as case studies. They were finally
evaluated in terms of in-depth hermeneutics with the aim of understanding the latent
meaning of biographical transitions in the light of identity development. Based
on the presentation of psychoanalytic development concepts of identity and, above
all, Arnett’s theory of emerging adulthood, the interviews are hermeneutically reconstructed
and theoretically contextualized. The biographic narratives are understood as expressions
of the bio-psycho-social processes of identity-formation as well as the body-bound,
habitual and emotional parts of biography. The analysis reveals both the dynamics
of progression and regression in career orientation and the risks that may come
with the creation of meaningful transitions. It becomes clear that even under conditions
of the neglect and traumatization, of
parentification and functionalization, emerging adults can fight for freedom and
independence.