Narrative career counselling: theoretical and practical proposals within the narrative vocational identity

Identifying school and professional projects consistent with one’s own aspirations and motivations is a prerequisite not only for basic needs fulfilling (Ryan, 1995), first of all self-actualization (Sheldon and Elliot, 1999), but also for developmental tasks achieving, in particular for overall and vocational identity and for adulthood transition. Indeed, establishing life goals, making plans for the future and developing identity are seen as intertwined developmental tasks that actively involve young people (Luyckx, Schwartz, Berzonsky, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Smits, & Goossens, 2008) across vocational and global identity domains (Crocetti, Scrignaro, Sica, & Magrin, 2012). However, because of the complex and highly differentiated twentieth-century Western society and, especially in Italy, because of occupational uncertainty, defining and consolidating identity is more complex than in the past (Delay Syndrome; Livi Bacci, 2008). The present chapter, according to the narrative identity approach (McAdams, 2008, 2014) and Life Designing paradigm (Savickas et al., 2009) - that opposes identity vs. personality, adaptability vs. maturity, narrative realities vs. scientific facts - proposes the model of narrative career counselling in its theoretical and empirical aspects within the life span developmental psychology. Indeed, this seems to be the most helpful to support youth in the definition of future projects and in the formation/consolidation of their vocational identity. In particular, during the transition periods (such as school/university or work; university/work) young people have to make a sense of their life changes and to cope with difficulties related to psychological dimension of uncertainty, as evidenced by literature on the processes of decision making, problem solving, and related to difficulties in overcoming the moratorium and identity crisis. The narrative identity processes allow young people to connect their own past story to the present, to plan the future in light of the internal and external changes and to pinpoint personal and work projects that allow young people to integrate internal instances and resources and the opportunities offered by the context through self-reflection and meaning making processes, and autobiographical reasoning. Within the narrative career counselling’ model we illustrate strategies, paths and tools in order to achieve the described aims.