Early Adulthood

Early Adulthood
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Early Adulthood
Early adulthood is a moment in life when individuals need to make significant adjustments to their living. As such, people are confronted with new challenges, and they need to support themselves in many ways. They undergo the exploration of intimate relationships, working, lifestyle changes, and childbearing. Mark is a 28-year-old Caucasian male working at an insurance company. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Massachusetts University, and he lives with his girlfriend. His income is considered middle-class, as is the case with his neighborhood. The essence of this paper is to focus on his life as an early adult and depict the problems he faces. Although Mark has a stable income, he finds it hard to maintain intimacy due to psychological stress, overeating, and alcoholism.
Early adulthood is a stage that extends from 24 to 34 years. An early adult is an individual who begins to take a firm place in society by holding a job. The person should also maintain a family and take care of offspring as well as contribute to the community. The stage is marked with frustrations and tensions as the person tries to solve problems. The situation leads to a crisis called intimacy versus isolation. Mark has had significant problems in his relationship. He has been with his girlfriend for the past five years, but they have never had a child (Boyd & Bee, 2015). They have never been married because Mark is a drunkard, and his girlfriend believes that he needs to make significant behavioral changes before they can wed. These problems need to be solved by support and affection as well as love from family members to help them lead a normal life. However, this has not been the case, and it has hurt the life of the couple. Mark feels that he is isolated from his girlfriend and alienated from his family. He is feeling the pressure of not having a child at age 28 and keeps blaming his girlfriend for the situation. Mark spends most of his time with his friends and neglects his relationship.
The psychosocial crisis in this stage entails forming and maintaining intimate relationships. Notably, the success that a client depicts in this stage is depicting love. Mark has attempted to develop a close relationship with his girlfriend. However, the link is deprived of romance – it lacks deep intimacy, and it has led to isolation and loneliness (Rimfeld et al., 2019). The best way to combat this issue would have been to form close relationships with family and friends as well as a sincere and robust romantic relationship with his girlfriend. Mark argues with his girlfriend over small issues, and it leads to a lack of agreement in the connection, which has made it extremely hard to maintain romance. He drinks whenever they quarrel and fails to listen to her grievances when in a discussion.
The central process of early adulthood is the formation of intimacy with other people. It appears that the client has not achieved the stage to move into the prime adaptive ego quality successfully. Mark fails to understand the usefulness of intimate relationships in his life. He does not know the best ways through which he can approach his girlfriend to maintain a close relationship (Mollon et al., 2018). His life is majorly based on drunkenness and the lack of ability to understand other people. Mark exhibits the fear of commitment and an increase in mistrust in other people. He needs to make definitive changes in his life by committing to his existing relationship. Mark also needs to trust his girlfriend other than compelling her into childbearing without marriage being the ultimate objective. The core pathology that he exhibits is reminiscent of his existing traits.
Diversity plays a critical role in the unsuccessful resolution of the psychosocial crisis in the life of Mark. It is worth noting that most of his friends are African American, and he despises them. Mark is seemingly stuck in the emerging adulthood stage, which lies between adolescence and young adulthood. He fails to understand that he has broad possibilities and responsibilities in the future (Estrada et al., 2019). He focuses on himself rather than other people despite knowing that he needs to form intimate relationships with his spouse and strong relationships with other people. Mark is unstable mentally and spiritually, as is exhibited by his constant desire for drinking. Diversity should help Mark to make notable changes in his life by accepting his situation and finding answers from his friends and family.
Mark needs the correct intervention from family and friends to ensure that he transitions well into early adulthood. It means that his belief in individualism should be altered significantly to ensure that he can make changes to his life. Mark needs encouragement from his family members and friends to reduce his preference to get drunk when faced with various problems. He needs to open up communication lines with people around him to ensure that he is making the right choices (Mollon et al., 2018). The ultimate objective of the intervention is to help him understand that the role other people play in his life cannot be understated.
Mark is suffering from psychological stress that involves environmental conditions and adverse life events. He was once a persuasive person, but he has been converted into as stressed individual. The pressure is unmitigated in his life, and he fails to understand the stress management perspective useful in ensuring that he can make definitive changes in his life. Stress has been augmented with the lack of control over his alcohol abuse. He also fails to exercise and seek social support from his friends and family (Rimfeld et al., 2019). He knows that health in adult life implies managing stress and controlling alcohol intake. However, he fails to articulate any of these objectives. Mark does not want to keep physically fit, and he is on the verge of becoming obese because he overeats at times.
In conclusion, Mark has had significant problems in his relationship. He has been with his girlfriend for the past five years, but they have never had a child. They have never been married because Mark is a drunkard, and his girlfriend believes that he needs to make significant behavioral changes before they can wed. Diversity plays a critical role in the unsuccessful resolution of the psychosocial crisis in the life of Mark. Most of his friends are African American, and he despises them. Mark is seemingly stuck in the emerging Adulthood stage, which lies between adolescence and young adulthood. He focuses on himself rather than other people despite knowing that he needs to form intimate relationships with his spouse and strong relationships with other people. Mark needs encouragement from his family members and friends to reduce his predilection to get drunk when faced with various problems. He needs to open up communication lines with people around him to ensure that he is making the right choices.
 
References
Boyd, D., & Bee, H. (2015). Lifespan development. Pearson Education Limited.
Estrada, E., Ferrer, E., Román, F. J., Karama, S., & Colom, R. (2019). Time-lagged associations between cognitive and cortical development from childhood to early adulthood. Developmental psychology.
Mollon, J., David, A. S., Zammit, S., Lewis, G., & Reichenberg, A. (2018). Course of cognitive development from infancy to early adulthood in the psychosis spectrum. JAMA psychiatry, 75(3), 270-279.
Rimfeld, K., Malanchini, M., Spargo, T., Spickernell, G., Selzam, S., McMillan, A., … & Plomin, R. (2019). Twins Early Development Study: A Genetically Sensitive Investigation into Behavioral and Cognitive Development from Infancy to Emerging Adulthood. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 1-6.