Who’s feature on Lindsay Lohan’s fourth trip to jail (albeit for less than a day), and the accompanying four mug shots, paints a bleak picture.

While I think Lindsay is a great actress and has the promise to really shine onscreen, I do believe she has massive psychological issues stemming from her upbringing, the burden of a career as a child star and subsequent foray into the Hollywood drug and party scene.

She was obviously coddled by her parents and, later, her minders, managers and enablers so that, at age 24, “she can’t stand to be alone, ever” at a time in her life when she should be taking responsibility for her actions and turning into a true adult.

A recent article in The New York Times Magazine that deals with the Gen Y/“20-something” stigma, aptly titled “What is it About 20-Somethings?”, asserts that those “who don’t have an emerging adulthood” (from ages 18-25, which involves finishing school, moving out of home, becoming financially independent— all of which Lohan has done— and, traditionally, getting married and having children [factors which aren’t so paramount nowadays] but, especially, making mistakes and learning from them on your own), like Lohan, “might face developmental tasks— identity exploration, self-focus, experimentation in love, work and worldview” may manifest themselves in later life, as a mid-life crisis, for example.

“Emerging adulthood must be both universal and essential,” because “if you don’t develop a skill at the right stage, you’ll be working the rest of your life to develop it when you should be moving on… The rest of your development will be unfavourable altered.”

Perhaps one of these skills is appreciating alone time, not only in superficial terms, like spending a day at home by yourself engrossed in a good book, a movie marathon, or spring cleaning, but in terms of reflecting on your experiences and, again, learning from them.

Clearly, Lohan has not learnt from her mistakes involving drugs and alcohol, with five stints in rehab in addition to her four in jail.

“What is it About 20-Somethings?” mentions the Yellowbrick residential program in Illinois, whose “philosophy is that young people must meet these challenges without coddling or rescue.”

While some rehab programs try to nip undesirable behaviour in the bud, Yellowbrick does the opposite: “We want the behaviour to unfold, and we want to be there in that critical moment, to work with that behaviour and help the emerging adult transition to great independence.”

A common belief in opposition to the “Lindsay Lohan needs help” mentality is that she’s still young, and for a lot of normal (re: out of the spotlight) young people, her behaviour is conventional. If so, this behaviour is unfolding naturally, and hopefully she will grow out of it. After all, she does have one more year left of “emerging adulthood”.

Elsewhere: [NYTimes] What is it About 20-Somethings?

[Jezebel] In Defence of Lindsay Lohan.