The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 3 298 The self-discovery that participants experienced their emerging adult clients undergoing was related to emerging adults not only determining who they are, but who they want to be. Given that individuals may not feel comfortable exploring their identities in the high school setting (Palkki & Caldwell, 2018), emerging adulthood may serve as a safer time for young adults to explore who they are. Discovering who they are is a formative task that is often met with much stress and instability (Arnett, 2004). Participants found that emerging adult clients often experience stress and anxiety about learning what they want in terms of careers, jobs, family roles, and communities. Several participants used the word “scared” when describing how their emerging adult clients express their feelings about the many transitions they experience. Counselors noted that their emerging adult clients are facing many transitions, such as entering and leaving college, entering and leaving jobs, moving out of their parents’ home, moving in with roommates or romantic partners, and changing friend groups. With these transitions, counselors reported that their clients expressed a level of indecisiveness in knowing if they are following the correct path. Many of these transitions come with an increased level of new independence that counselors noted their clients had difficulty navigating. In line with prior research (Leipold et al., 2019), counselors expressed that promoting resilience and fostering coping methods during these transitions is beneficial to establishing consistency, safety, and security for emerging adults in counseling sessions. Internet dating applications have led to emerging adults being more aware of the characteristics and criteria for who they want to date (Sprecher et al., 2019). Participants expressed that emerging adults often feel distress from the ending of relationships, conflicts with romantic partners, navigating who they want to date, and traversing internet dating applications. Several participants mentioned that their emerging adult clients’ self-worth was tied to their relationship status or who they are in a relationship. Participants reported that their clients’ attachment styles often lead to issues in dating. Participants noted that in their experiences, psychoeducation about healthy dating and attachment is often necessary to assist clients with these issues in the counseling session. Implications for Counselor Practice and Training The findings from this study provide valuable insights regarding counselors’ clinical experiences with emerging adult clients with several practice implications. Professional counselors can benefit from understanding the roles that emerging adults’ parental pressures, self-discovery, transitions, and dating and attachment have on their mental health. Counselors can benefit from asking about these four themes during the beginning of the counseling relationship to build rapport and immediately assist emerging adult clients with common developmental issues experienced by these clients. To assist emerging adult clients with negative feelings regarding parental pressures, counselors can offer clients the opportunity to bring their parent(s) to therapy. Marriage and family counselors can also intentionally address and process parental pressures in applicable family systems. Attending to emerging adult clients’ issues surrounding self-discovery has potential implications for multicultural and social justice counseling (Ratts et al., 2016). For example, emerging adult clients who identify as gender diverse or as a sexual minority may be discovering themselves in new ways that can elicit transprejudice, discrimination, and stigmatization in society (Wanzer et al., 2021). Utilizing the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCCs; Ratts et al., 2016) in the counseling session provides a framework for emerging adults who are discovering and exploring their cultural identities (Nice, 2024). Counselors can use the MSJCCs to understand emerging adults’ specific intersections of their identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, sexual identity, gender identity, spirituality).
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