Existential Psychology, Understanding the Main Problem of Young Adult Literature and the Research in the Field

In this research, we sought to answer the question of whether existential psychology (as presented by Bo Jacobson and Ernesto Spinelli) provides a conceptual framework for understanding the main problem of young adult literature and research in this field. To this end, we first analyzed the problem of young adult literature in the existing theoretical frameworks and found that all of them ultimately have considered this problem as a kind of dichotomy between self and the other/the world. After a brief introduction of existential psychology (from the perspective of Ernesto Spinelli and Bo Jacobson), we have shown that one can rely on the inter-relatedness principle and two basic life dilemmas, love/aloneness and the free choice /the Obligations of your life reality, as well as concepts such as daimonic, choice, freedom, responsibility in authentic or inauthentic ways to formulate the main problem of young adult literature. We propose, then, specific requirements for the method to apply this theory in literary criticism or theorizing (being qualitative, subject-oriented, and based on description), and appropriate areas for theorizing and literary criticism in this field, based on existential psychology.