Traversing Young Adulthood: The Male Journey from 20 to 40

Young adulthood spans a generation. Within those years boys become men as they struggle with the powerful issues of autonomy, intimacy, and parenthood. In an attempt to illustrate this process, placing special emphasis on the relationship between fathers and sons. I will present clinical material from the treatment of two men, one at the beginning of young adulthood, the other at the end. Then I will use this clinical material to organize my theoretical comments around several developmental tasks that, in my opinion, best describe male experience during these years.

I first met Jim when he was 9 years old. At that time his parents brought him for evaluation because of a general sense of unhappiness, temper tantrums, and difficulty in making friends. Evaluation revealed a bright, well-organized, neurotic youngster, and a recommendation for analysis was made and accepted. During our 3 years together we were able to work in-depth on all aspects of Jim's neurosis. At its core were typical infantile sexual issues and a particularly intense positive oedipal conflict, that is, aggressive feelings and fantasies about father, whom Jim experienced as distant, demanding and ungiving. Although