title: Emerging adults' lived experience of formative family stress: the family's lasting influence.
abstract: In this article, we use a phenomenology framework to explore emerging adults' formative experiences of family stress. Fourteen college students participated in a qualitative interview about their experience of family stress. We analyzed the interviews using the empirical phenomenological psychology method. Participants described a variety of family stressors, including parental conflict and divorce, physical or mental illness, and emotional or sexual abuse by a family member. Two general types of parallel processes were essential to the experience of family stress for participants. First, the family stressor was experienced in shifts and progressions reflecting the young person's attempts to manage the stressor, and second, these shifts and progressions were interdependent with deeply personal psychological meanings of self, sociality, physical and emotional expression, agency, place, space, project, and discourse. We describe each of these parallel processes and their subprocesses, and conclude with implications for mental health practice and research.
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin, 301 Education Building, 1000 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA. cvaldez@wisc.edu
authors.forename: Carmen R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Valdez
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chavez
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woulfe
mesh_terms: D054523:Adult Survivors of Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000523:psychology; D004243:Divorce / Q000523:psychology; D017579:Domestic Violence / Q000523:psychology; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D036301:Qualitative Research; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012923:Social Class; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: families; lived experience; phenomenology; stress / distress; young adults