Main description:

This book provides a comprehensive and updated review of the concepts, models, and interventions related to the process of adjustment to life course transitions.

In times of transition, an individual is exposed to experiences that require them to assume new roles and exhibit updated behaviors. Regardless of the characteristics of these transitions, exposure to normative trajectories imposes on the person an intensive engagement in a process of (re-)adjustment. Sometimes this demand is beyond the scope of one's ability, motivation, or comprehension. Hence, some people might ineffectively perceive and/or react to the change and end up feeling unable to handle the change and inclined to escape the situation. A preventive intervention that either reduces the impact of possible risk factors or fosters possible protective factors would support the people in managing the transition.

While the importance of prevention of maladjustment is repeatedly mentioned in the literature, this is the first-known book on how to prevent maladjustment. It examines how the sense of transition emerges, what adjustment means, the models that elaborate on how people manage in times of transition, what the antecedents of maladjustment are, and especially how maladjustment could be prevented. Out of these discussions, a new model, The Transitional Stress and Adjustment (TSA) Model, is suggested as a grand framework for paving a way forward to better prevent people's maladjustment to life course transitions.

Prevention of Maladjustment to Life Course Transitions is a much-needed cornerstone in the future development within the prevention science framework. This book has interdisciplinary appeal for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in psychology, sociology, public health, social work, criminology, medicine, health sciences, public policy, economics, and education who consider prevention an important vehicle of intervention to promote health and wellbeing. Its focus on the topic of adjustment also would be of special interest to those who explore child and youth development.

Contents:

Part I: Introduction

1.Moshe Israelashvili. The need to prevent maladjustment to life course transitions

2.Moshe Israelashvili. Adjustment to Transitions: Definitions of Terms

Part II: Adjustment to Transitions

3.Moshe Israelashvili. Theories of adjustment to transitions

4.Moshe Israelashvili. Reconsidering Stage Theories of Adjustment

5.Moshe Israelashvili. Adjustment to Transitions: Common Components

6.Moshe Israelashvili. The Transitional Stress and Adjustment (TSA) Model

7.Moshe Israelashvili & Shira Freedman-Goldberg. Preliminary Explorations of the TSA Model's Validity

Part III: Prevention of Maladjustment: Family Context

8.Moshe Israelashvili & Orit Taubman-Ben Ari. The Transition to Parenthood: From Adjustment to Personal Growth

9.Sharlene A. Wolchik, Irwin N. Sandler & Moshe Israelashvili. Adjustment to Divorce

PART IV: Prevention of Maladjustment: Educational Context

10.Daniel T.L. Shek & Moshe Israelashvili. The Transition to Secondary School: A Definition and Conceptualization of Adjustment During Adolescence

11.Martin Swanbrow Becker & Moshe Israelashvili. College Adjustment and Maladjustment

PART V: Prevention of Maladjustment: Army Context

12.Abigail Gewirtz & Moshe Israelashvili. Adjustment Following Separation: Prevention of Child Maladjustment Following Parental Deployment to War

13.Marvin J. Westwood & Moshe Israelashvili. Veteran Transition to Civilian Life: Leveraging the Strengths of Military Culture

PART VI: Prevention of Maladjustment: Civilian Context

14.Moshe Israelashvili & Shira Freedman-Goldberg. Adjustment to Immigration

15.Laura Nota & Moshe Israelashvili. Inclusion: Environmental Efforts to Prevent Maladjustment in the Service of Human Growth

PART VII: Prospective Challenges

16.Moshe Israelashvili. Prevention of Maladjustment: Paving a Way Forward