Your Twenty-Something: A User’s Guide to a Generation Nobody Explained to Us-A 3-part Series for Parents, Clinicians, Educators and Anyone Trying to Understand Modern Adulthood
Presenter: Alison Feit, PhD
Date(s): Sep. 15, 22, 2026
Time: 7:00-8:15 PM
Sessions: 2
Credits: 2.5
All Levels
Price: $103 (with credits), $25 (without credits)
Hybrid
Click Here to Register!
Description
Part I: Becoming Someone Why does a generation with more freedom, information, and opportunity often feel so uncertain about who they are? We will explore identity formation in the age of social media, the pressure to curate a coherent self, and the hidden costs of becoming overly attached to a particular version of oneself. We will examine anxiety, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and burnout not simply as symptoms, but as developmental struggles emerging from the challenge of constructing a self under constant observation. Many young adults know exactly who they are supposed to be but have lost touch with what they actually want. Drawing on contemporary psychoanalytic ideas about desire, adaptation, recognition, and the unlived life, we will explore why ambition so often disappears, why doomscrolling can feel easier than choosing, and how a life can become increasingly successful while feeling increasingly unreal. We will ask what happens when the question What do I want? is slowly replaced by What should I want?
Part II: The Hidden Emotional Negotiations of Modern Adulthood
Much of adult life is governed by conversations nobody realizes they are having. Who gets to need? Who gets to disappoint? Who gets to change? Why do so many parents and young adults feel trapped in repeating arguments that never seem to resolve? Using contemporary relational psychoanalysis, we will examine the unconscious negotiations shaping families, friendships, dating, achievement, dependence, and separation. We will explore how people become stuck in roles they never consciously chose—and what allows new possibilities to emerge.
Part III: Psychoanalysis, part cultural observation, and part guide to the emotional world of modern adulthood, this series is designed for parents, clinicians, educators, and anyone trying to understand a generation that has never had more ways to define itself—and never seemed less certain about who it is becoming. The goal is not simply to understand Gen Z. It is to leave with a more sophisticated way of understanding how selves are formed, lost, protected, and discovered—and how hidden emotional negotiations quietly shape our choices, relationships, ambitions, and identities. You will leave with a way of thinking that changes how you see young adults, how you understand the people around you, and perhaps how you understand yourself.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Analyze contemporary identity formation through a relational psychoanalytic lens, examining how social media, algorithmic culture, and constant self-definition create unique developmental challenges around authenticity, recognition, and the construction of a coherent self.
- Distinguish between symptoms and developmental struggles by reframing anxiety, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and burnout not merely as clinical presentations but as meaningful negotiations around desire, ambition, and the tension between “who I am supposed to be” and “what I actually want.”
- Identify hidden emotional negotiations shaping modern adulthood, including unconscious patterns around need, disappointment, dependence, and separation, and recognize how these dynamics become enacted in families, friendships, dating, and achievement contexts.
- Apply relational psychoanalytic concepts (including adaptation, the unlived life, mutual recognition, and dissociated self-states) to understand why young adults may feel increasingly successful yet increasingly unreal, and why the question “What do I want?” is often replaced by “What should I want?”
- Formulate a sophisticated framework for understanding emerging adulthood that moves beyond surface-level generational analysis to illuminate how selves are formed, lost, protected, and discovered within contemporary cultural conditions, enabling more nuanced clinical, parental, and educational responses.
References
- Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties.American Psychologist, 55(5), 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.5.469
- Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time.Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
- Benjamin, J. (1990). An outline of intersubjectivity: The development of recognition. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 7(Suppl.), 33–46.
- Bromberg, P. M. (1998). Standing in the spaces: Essays on clinical process, trauma, and dissociation. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.
- Côté, J. E., & Levine, C. G. (2016). Identity formation, youth, and development: A simplified approach. New York: Psychology Press.
- Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming conversation: The power of talk in a digital age. New York: Penguin Press.
- Gabbard, G. O. (2009). The repetition compulsion in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 37(3), 477–492. https://doi.org/10.1521/jaap.2009.37.3.477
About the Presenter
Alison Feit, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychology practicing in Atlanta and New York. She serves on the Communications/Website committee for the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), is on faculty at St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute (STLPI), China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) and the William Alanson White Institute (WAWI) where she also serves on the Artist Group and the Sexual Abuse Service. Her upcoming youtube and podcast “Ghost Note” focuses on unconscious processes and relational dynamics that shape individual and collective life.
Credit Information
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Credits Available
- Physicians: 2.5 Credits
- Psychologists: 2.5 Credits
- Social Workers: 2.5 Credits
- PAs: 2.5 Credits
- Nurses & NPs: 2.5 Nursing Contact Hours
- Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 2.5 Credits. Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
- Interprofessional Continuing Education (Counselors, NPs, students): 2.5 Credits
Other Profession Types
Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute holds the final say on which accredited activities they accept.
Disclosure Statement
None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.
COUNSELORS: The St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5953. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company. — Updated December 2022