Types of separation-individuation in relation to mothers and fathers among young people entering adulthood

This paper presents a study on emerging adults' separation-individuation in relation to parents from a person-centred perspective. The participants, aged 18 through 28 years (N = 2040, 73% female), offered self-reports on separation-individuation in relation to their mother and father separately. We used the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults (Komidar, L., M. Zupancic, G. Socan, and M. Puklek Levpuscek. 2014. "Development and construct validation of the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults (ITEA)." Journal of Personality Assessment 96 (5): 503-514), specifically designed to tap individuation issues in emerging adulthood. Clustering procedures revealed four internally replicable and structurally consistent types across parents, representing the current relationship dynamics of parent - child relationships. The consistency analysis of cross-parent type membership suggested that about a half of the participants were assigned to the same type of separation-individuation in relation to their mother and father. We considered the individuated-related and the individuated-independent type as healthy separated-individuated yet distinct types, whereas the anxious and the dependent type reflected likely difficulties in separation-individuation. The type membership was significantly associated with the participants' age, gender, and adult role transitions.