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.

PROCEDURE Recruitment and Enrollment: Public and private schools in Catalonia will be contacted to inform families about the research via email and Centre Besai's Instagram profile. Information and participation forms will be available on Centre Besai's website. Volunteers will apply through the website, undergo a welcome interview, and, if eligible, will be randomly assigned to one of three groups.

Assessment and Intervention: Psychologists trained in HIP, EYME, and Geniotype work will conduct assessments and interventions. Participants will provide sociodemographic data and complete the Spanish versions of the Satisfaction with Life Scale and Young Person-Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation scales, initially and after 8 weeks. Experimental groups will receive eight one-hour sessions based on the protocol, while the control group will remain in the waiting list. After the second evaluation, the control group may join a group intervention.

EXPECTED IMPACT ON PARTICIPANTS

No harmful effects have been identified in the psychological treatments used in the study. However, precautions will be taken to prevent potential side effects from VR intervention. VR may cause mild discomfort like dizziness or nausea. To minimize risks:

Virtual environments will be stable, reacting only to user actions. Techniques like teleportation will minimize movement and side effects. Participants will promptly report any side effects to the therapist, who will halt the session until discomfort subsides.

After each session, participants will remain seated briefly to ensure any discomfort dissipates. If discomfort persists, they will stay seated with the therapist until fully recovered.

DATA ANALYSIS Descriptive analyses will include means, standard deviations, medians, interquartile ranges, frequencies, and percentages, assessing distribution normality using relevant tests. From repertory grid data, cognitive indices like current self-ideal self discrepancy, cognitive differentiation, polarization, presence of dilemmatic constructs, and implicative dilemmas will be obtained using GRIDCOR 6.0 software.

Intervention efficacy will be assessed via repeated measures analysis of variance on pre and post questionnaire scores, with Levene's test for variance heterogeneity and Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Analyses will be adjusted for covariates such as age, gender, and sociodemographic conditions, with confidence intervals and effect sizes calculated. It is expected that the analyses will show a significant improvement in life satisfaction and a reduction in psychological distress in adolescents participating in the experimental groups compared to the control group Exploratory analyses will examine gender and migratory status differences, and correlations between baseline variables will be calculated.

DATA MANAGEMENT PLAN The data management will adhere to these principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). Data will be collected automatically at baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up, stored securely on Centre Besai's cloud platform. Researchers will maintain strict confidentiality regarding participants' personal information and pledge not to misuse or disclose it. Personal data will be securely stored in locked cabinets and encrypted hard disks, with access restricted to the principal investigator. Data analysis will use pseudo-anonymized databases to protect participant identities. All participants will adhere to relevant data protection laws, ensuring compliance with Organic Law 15/1999, Royal Decree 1720/2007, and Regulation 2016/679.