Saturday 25 July 08:15
- 09:45
Hall: 28 - Room 6 SPT
Chair and Presenter:
Drosos Nikos
Discussant:
Sgaramella Teresa Maria
Division: Division 16: Counseling Psychology
Adults facing mental health challenges, substance addiction, disability, and other intersecting vulnerabilities often encounter complex barriers when seeking meaningful, sustainable work. Traditional career counselling approaches may not fully address the psychosocial, systemic, and identity-related factors that shape these individuals' vocational journeys. This symposium brings together innovative applied psychology perspectives that integrate transdisciplinary collaboration and narrative, person-centred frameworks to promote inclusion, well-being, and decent work — closely aligned with ICAP 2026's theme of New Directions in Applied Psychology.
Five presentations offer complementary but distinct contributions:
• Athanasiou (Cyprus) explores a transdisciplinary community-based model where career counsellors collaborate with mental health, social, and legal professionals to reduce fragmented services and enhance sustainable work participation.
• Charokopaki & Petrou (Greece) examine work values and career adaptability among individuals recovering from psychotropic substance addiction, providing evidence for tailored counselling and supported employment.
• Drosos (Cyprus) investigates how mental health service users construct meaningful careers, mobilise psychosocial resources, and benefit from supported employment to sustain participation and integrate work into recovery narratives.
• Rocca & Sgaramella (Italy) present a systemic and narrative framework (My System of Career Influences) to help adults with substance use histories reframe life stories and strengthen vocational identity.
• Ferrari, Sgaramella & Zanibon (Italy) give voice to adults with disabilities navigating career change, highlighting personal resources, social factors, and identity reconstruction through qualitative counselling research.
Together, these contributions demonstrate how career counselling evolves beyond traditional vocational matching to support recovery, empowerment, and social inclusion. By combining systemic, narrative, and transdisciplinary practice models, the symposium shows how applied psychology can foster decent and meaningful work (SDG 8 and 10), well-being (SDG 3), and cross-sector partnerships (SDG 17) for vulnerable adults.
