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This article discusses suicide. Please take care while reading. If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide or experiencing a mental health crisis, support is available. In Canada, you can call or text 9-8-8 for immediate help. You can also visit 988.ca/community-resources to find crisis and community supports by province or territory.
Emerging adulthood (ages 18–29) is often portrayed as a time of possibility, shaped by post-secondary education, early work experiences and new relationships. Developmental psychologist Jeffery Arnett (2000), who first introduced the concept of emerging adulthood, offers a more nuanced view. He describes this stage as one of instability, identity exploration, self-focus, feeling “in-between” and anticipating future possibilities – a period of uncertainty even under typical conditions.
For many, these uncertainties are likely compounded by suicidality, the second-leading cause of death among this age group in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2023). In this article, suicidality is used as an umbrella term to encompass the full spectrum of suicide-related thoughts and behaviours, including suicidal ideation, plans and attempts. Suicidality can make it difficult – and sometimes impossible – to imagine a future (CASP), which in turn can influence decisions about education, work and career. Yet how suicidality shapes career development in emerging adulthood remains largely overlooked in both research and practice. To address this gap, we need to recognize suicidality as part of this developmental period; otherwise, we risk missing how deeply it shapes, disrupts and redirects the paths emerging adults take.
‘What does your future look like?’
Although emerging adulthood is recognized as a time of uncertainty, it is still widely assumed that personal and professional growth will follow a linear path. For those experiencing suicidality, the pressure to stay “on track” can quickly become overwhelming (Schechter et al., 2018). Emerging adults are often surrounded by well-meaning questions: What are you studying? What do you want to do when you’re finished? What jobs will you be applying for? These questions require us to draw on what Cohen and Duberley (2021) call career imagination – the way we envision which career paths feel possible, appropriate and desirable. But when suicidality makes it feel like no path is available, even genuine curiosity can deepen distress, turning moments of connection into experiences of disconnection.
What can we do when the future feels off-limits?
This brings us to a paradox: career development often involves imagining a future, yet suicidality can make that future feel unreachable – or absent entirely. This raises a pressing question: How do we navigate career conversations within the complex realities of emerging adulthood?
We can start by broadening how we think about this life stage. Understanding emerging adulthood as inherently unstable and exploratory makes more space for paths that diverge from the assumed script. This reframing challenges the idea that progress must be measured against a single, linear standard and opens the door for more authentic conversations about where someone is now.
“In both my research and clinical work, I’ve heard countless stories of how small but consistent support made a difference – often offered by people who never realized the depth of their impact.”
Part of that openness means recognizing that suicidality is not simply a derailment from personal or career development, but an experience that can intersect with it in complex ways. For example, someone who has experienced suicidality may later choose a career path in the mental health field. Understanding suicidality in this way requires moving beyond a narrow focus on risk factors and instead engaging with the distinct pain and pressures that are making life feel unbearable. When a person feels understood in this way, space opens to meet them where they are. From there, career development can be explored in ways that fit their current needs and circumstances.
Of course, many emerging adults experiencing suicidality aren’t walking into spaces and naming it outright. Often, we don’t know. Yet the ways people show up for them can still be deeply meaningful. In both my research and clinical work, I’ve heard countless stories of how small but consistent support made a difference – often offered by people who never realized the depth of their impact. These supporters weren’t always mental health professionals; they were teachers, career advisors, managers, mentors and peers.
I experienced this myself with a professor in my second year of undergraduate studies. At the time, I was navigating suicidal ideation after a recent suicide crisis in my community. I don’t know if he understood the extent of what I was carrying – perhaps he had a sense – but his investment in me mattered. He took my ideas seriously, offered thoughtful feedback and always thanked me for my contributions. These interactions didn’t require me to picture my future, but they quietly made it easier to imagine myself as someone with something to offer. That sense of self-worth became an early opening for career imagination.
In many ways, career imagination carries with it a sense of hope – what Edey and Jevne (2003) define as “the ability to envision a future in which we wish to participate.” I recently heard this definition quoted by Registered Psychologists Jonathon Dubue, Chelsea Hobbs and Rebecca Hudson-Breen at the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association’s (CCPA) conference, where they emphasized that hope can be nurtured both directly and indirectly.
For emerging adults experiencing suicidality, the indirect nurturance of career imagination and hope may matter most. I think of the 1% change rule: small, sustained shifts can lead to meaningful transformation. A single moment of connection may seem minor, but over time, these moments compound – not always in a straight line, and not without setbacks, but often in ways that matter. Even a subtle shift in how someone sees themselves can change how they engage with learning, work or possibility.
Takeaways
Supporting emerging adults in their career development means widening our lens on both suicidality and what it means to move forward in life. Suicidality is not just an individual burden – it reflects the social, structural and relational contexts that shape the futures available to emerging adults. When we treat linear timelines and conventional milestones as the only markers of success, we risk overlooking the quieter, often indirect ways that hope and possibility are nurtured.
If we truly want to walk alongside emerging adults – especially those navigating suicidality – we must be willing to challenge narrow definitions of progress, create environments where openness is possible and centre their voices in shaping the futures they can envision. Hope grows in many ways; our role is to notice, protect and make space for it, until they are ready to carry it themselves.
