Abstract:

Only few studies in career counseling literature have focused on eating disorders, although this condition highly interferes with education and working life, affecting the career exploration activities and the range of choice people take into consideration. Based on Life Design, the project aims at (1) analyzing the relationship among career adaptability, time perspective, and hope on young adults’ with and without eating disorders life satisfaction, tendency to invest in training, and commitment to achieve career goals; (2) examining career narratives of young adults with eating disorders in order to identify their life themes, meanings, and orientation toward the future, and identifying similarities and differences between young adults with and without eating disorders as regard their career identity and life themes. Regarding the first goal, taking into account the current debate about the relationship among career adaptability, time perspective and hope, two theoretical models will be compared. Model A hypothesizes that career adaptability and time perspective predict hope, that in turn leads to life satisfaction, tendency to invest in training, and commitment to achieve career goals. Model B hypothesizes that hope predicts career adaptability and time perspective, that in turn lead to life satisfaction, tendency to invest in training, and commitment to achieve career goals. As concern the second goal, considering several authors’ suggestions to use narrative approaches in the career counseling process, the project will explore, using qualitative and quantitative methods, career narratives of young adults with and without eating disorders and verify if youth with eating disorders show a lower number of themes related to career construction and career identity as well as a higher number of barriers mainly related to their condition than their peers without this disorder. The project will be structured in two phases: in the first phase, two theoretical models will be tested and compared. Specifically, relationships among career adaptability, time perspective, and hope on life satisfaction, tendency to invest in training, and commitment to achieve career goals in young adults with and without eating disorders will be examined. In the second phase, career narratives of young adults with and without eating disorders will be analyzed and compared.