How Do Youths Cope with Crisis?: Focusing on the Narratives of Their Vulnerable Situations and Well-Being Strategies

South Korea has recently had one of the highest suicide rates among young people (25-34 years old) in the OECD (2021). Korean youths face intense competitive pressures, economic realities that make it difficult to prepare for the mid- to long-term, and overlapping cultural pressures that make them confused where to settle their value orientations and convictions. Nonetheless, Korean youth are standing away from traditional religions, which have historically covered them with value orientation and meaning in life.

This study focuses on the religiosity of youths who have faced excessive vulnerability; suicide, self-harm, or mental illness in the "individualization under multiple pressures (Jung, 2023)" which is South Korean young people's socio-structural backdrop. It analyses the meaning-making process of religious reflexivity in vulnerable situations, especially, how religious resources play roles in dealing with their turbulent pain and ongoing emotional crises.

One-on-one in-depth interviews with religious youths who have attempted suicide, self-harm, or felt pain from psychological problems with overlapping vulnerability were conducted to gather data. It develops a "substantial theory (Glazer and Strauss, 1967)" of religious resilience in vulnerable young people, preserving their lives through not only psychological counseling and psychiatric therapy but also transcendental horizons.

The preliminary findings indicate that religions provide reasons for the essential will to live from a vulnerable experience and that religious-spiritual resources and contents alleviate the strain of harsh mental stresses. In this sequence, they develop a well-being strategy based on reflexivity derived from their entangled extremal and religious-spiritual experiences.

This study has the potential to sophisticate the relationship between young adults' religiosity, vulnerability, and well-being in the South Korean context, moreover, to implicate supplement perspectives for young people policy by incorporating religiosity and spirituality into institutional assistance, which is frequently limited to psychological viewpoints.