Blog

Just like midlife, quarterlife can bring its own crisis — trying to separate from your parents or caregivers and forge a sense of self is a struggle. But the generation entering adulthood now faces novel, sometimes debilitating, challenges.

Many young people today struggle to afford college or decide not to attend, and the “existential crisis” that used to hit after graduation descends earlier and earlier, said Angela Neal-Barnett, a psychology professor at Kent State University who has studied anxiety in young people. “We’ve been constrained by this myth that you graduate from college and you start your life,” she said. Without the social script previous generations followed — graduate college, marry, raise a family — Ms. Byock said her young clients often flailed around in a state of extended adolescence.