When Coming of Age Meets Coming to Terms: Young Adults Living with Chronic Illness - Tracey A. Revenson
Ore 16:30 – 18:00 Aula 4P, Via Venezia 12
01.04.2026
The diagnosis of a serious illness creates disruption at any age but presents unique coping tasks for young adults in their 20s. Young adulthood is a time of growth and change. The earliest adult years, termed emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000), are characterized by the development of self-concept and identity, engagement, self-exploration, building of intimate and peer relationships, and pursuit of educational or career goals.
Chronic serious illness at this age fundamentally interrupts normative developmental tasks. In this talk, Prof. Revenson will draw on two studies of psychosocial adjustment to illness in emerging adulthood—a mixed methods study of emerging adults with blood cancers and a survey study of emerging adults living with a visible skin disease.
These studies illustrate how illness that is 'off-time' in the adult life cycle affects mental health and social relationships, and suggest important avenues for psychological intervention.
TRACEY REVENSON is Professor of Psychology at the City University of New York where she teaches courses in Health Psychology Coping with Chronic Illness and the Social Determinants of Health Disparities at both the undergraduate and PhD levels. Her research examines how stress and coping processes affect psychological adaptation to chronic physical illnesses, the stresses of caregiving for people with chronic illness, and how adaptation is influenced by the sociocultural context.
Dr. Revenson is the author of over 100 empirical articles, 45 book chapters, and the co-author or co-editor of 14 books, including multiple Handbooks of Health Psychology (2000, 2012, 2019, 2024) Caregiving in the Illness Context (2015) and Couples Coping with Stress (2005). She has been Editor-in-Chief of three peer-review journals: Women’s Health, Annals of Behavioral Medicine and the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. She is a Past-President of the Society for Health Psychology and the current United States delegate to the European Health Psychology Society.
She has received a number of prestigious awards: the Nathan Perry Award for Career Contributions to Health Psychology from the Society for Health Psychology (2013), the Distinguished Career Contribution Award from the International Society of Behavioral Medicine (2025) and national awards for mentoring: the Award for Excellence in Mentoring from the Society for Health Psychology in 2019 and the Distinguished Mentor Award from the Society for Behavioral Medicine in 2020.
