Enhancing an emergent adults with parental neglect’s career adaptability and resilience through life-design counselling

Abstract

Much has been written about child abuse in general, particularly about physical and sexual abuse; however, scant research is available on the chronic emotional neglect of children (Stoltenborgh et al., 2014). The sparsity of reported cases on neglect links to another review in which it was found that child maltreatment research focuses predominantly on sexual abuse. The same study found that the prevalence of child maltreatment across the world is largely similar (Stoltenborgh et al., 2014). In this study, I would like to apply life-design counselling to explore the effects of parental neglect – in the form of emotional neglect – on the career adaptability and resilience of a young adult who is ready to start a career. According to the Children’s Act (38 of 2005) (Republic of South Africa, 2006, p. 24), neglect “in relation to a child means a failure in the exercise of parental responsibilities to provide for the child’s basic physical, intellectual, emotional or social needs”. In my study, this definition applies to parents who purposefully or ignorantly overlook the signs that their child needs comfort or attention. Consistent emotional neglect may have long-term effects on children and may lead to high-risk behaviour, lack of empathy and emotional intelligence, poor relationships, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, personality disorders, attachment problems, inability to regulate emotions, and adolescents running away from home due to their needs not being met (De Bruin, 2016). This study aims to investigate the influence of an intervention based on life-design principles on a young adult who had experienced parental neglect and reached the stage of entering the workplace. The research is based on an intrinsic, descriptive, exploratory case study involving a single individual. The design is qualitative in nature, both in terms of the selection of the participant and the methods used for gathering and analysing data, as career intervention based on life-design principles is constructed around the stories of individuals as perceived in their personal contexts.