There are so many life events that will effect people throughout their lives. From the list of social readjustment rating conducted by Holmes and Rahe in (1967) I have picked the following to analyse, marriage, gain of a new family member, divorce and death of a spouse. I will attempt to incorporate all of these into a free flowing essay. The majority of people in their adult lives may have to adjust to these. From the list the following life event score the following points. Death of spouse 100 points, divorce 73 points marriage 50 points and new family member 39 points. The highest score is 100 points, so in my essay I aim to analyse some from the top of the list to ones in the middle of the list.

The social readjustment scale was the earliest attempt to look at the way life events have an impact on some psychological illness' and disorders. The scale consists of 43 life we events that some times appear to come before illness. The score is out of 100 and this is called the life change unit, this will be the value given to the stress brought on by the event.

Hobson (1981) believes following a life event we will go through

Immobilisation: - this being a state of shock we will go through.

seven periods of transition. Theses consist of

Bee (1994) states that 90% of people will become parents. There are many people with different views to being a parent and how they should bring their children up. Becoming a parent varies from person to person on the meaning and impact that the child will bring. When people become parents the impact will be larger then any other passage in their lives and can happen within a wide range of ages. There are some couples who will be under a great deal of stress although they don't have children. It may be that they are trying to conceive children. Each unsuccessful month their hopes will rise with the expected knowledge that "this time might be the one" only to have their hopes and dreams shattered when the female fails to conceive. This in itself is an extremely stressful time. Many marriages will tend to suffer, even in some minute degree, when children come along, as new parents will not have as much time for each other as they did before. Ben (1994) believes that new parents will not have the time for each other e.g. for conversation, affection and intercourse. As stated previously the satisfaction of marriage is at it's highest before children come along may not return to the same level until the children have grown up and left home. Once a child leaves home people may feel a loss similar to that of loosing a partner.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Holmes Rahe, Kurdet Schmitt, Woollett Fuller, EVENTS ADULTHOOD, Gross Mcilveen, London Letts, life events, life event, Mcilveen Psychology, Education London, et al, London Hewlett/sch/psy/life, children marriage, Letts Education, list social readjustment, event seven, believes life, 1981 believes, psychology introduction, holmes rahe 1967, stoughton london, introduction children marriage, hodder stoughton, event seven periods, london letts 1998,
Approximate Word count = 1725
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)