Discovering Adolescents' Talents and Life Projects as a Key Factor in Their Life Satisfaction

This study addresses the growing concern over adolescent mental health deterioration. There is an increase in psychiatric disorders like anxiety, depression, sleep, and eating disorders, as well as suicide attempts. Added to life stage stress is the anguish from a lack of existential meaning, possibly due to the absence of a life project providing motivation and direction. Humanistic and existential psychology views a life project as central to development, promoting well-being and self-realization.

Identity processes are essential for adolescents. Personal Construct Theory focuses on personal identity, understood as the core constructs of a wider system with which people understand and predict events, and generate personal goals. Using the Explore Your Meanings (EYME) tool, a virtual reality (VR) technology platform based on the repertory grid technique, the goal is to observe the evolution of constructing a life project closer to the ideal self. This intervention allows participants to explore their identity within their personal world of meanings in a safe environment.

The concept of Geniotype, created by Tony Estruch in 2022, highlights individual talents and strengths, classifying skills and abilities for vocational guidance. This information helps frame an adolescent's professional life project, preventing school failure, low self-esteem, and mental health issues. The Geniotype test offers valuable insights for adolescents at a crucial stage where society demands clarity about their professional future.

The investigators start from the idea that an intervention focused on adolescents' life projects could enhance their life satisfaction and, secondarily, their mental health. To achieve these goals, they developed a therapeutic protocol based on Humanistic Integrative Psychotherapy (HIP). This model uses a broad range of integrative techniques to help construct and develop life projects, considering the therapeutic relationship and individual peculiarities. The model has shown favorable results in adults with depression and personality disorders, and in benzodiazepine deprescription.

The main objective of this research is to improve adolescents' life satisfaction using a protocol based on EYME and HIP, incorporating the concept of Geniotype. Additionally, the relationships between variables evaluated at the start, including sociodemographic factors with a focus on gender and age, will be explored.