Abstract:
The aim of the research was to determine whether a life design perspective could potentially serve as a way of counselling emerging adults to construct a self that enables them to be agents of both their own development and the development of a healthy and sustainable environment. The study was based on a socio-constructivist paradigm which was well suited to a qualitative research design comprising case studies. Six participants who complied with the definition of emerging adults? and were comparatively representative of the ethnic diversity in South Africa were selected purposively from a group of individuals who had applied for career counselling in a private practice context. Qualitative data collection, analysis and interpretation techniques were used to explore the effect of life design counselling on the self-construction of these emerging adults. The themes and subthemes implemented in the research were determined deductively (a priori), and the concepts agency? and communion? served as the two main research themes. Subsubthemes that emerged inductively no themes or subthemes emerged inductively and were engaged in an integrated manner, demonstrated that a balanced oscillation between self-centredness and other?-centredness could be negotiated, and that deliberate diversification which comprises the combination of virtues and meaningful activities (including a profession), could be fundamental to spiritual or relational-moral identity formation. Findings suggest that the participants in my study benefited from the implementation of a life design counselling intervention aimed at constructing a (relational-moral) self and the necessary human capital resource for becoming citizen leaders.
