Page 49 - Petelin, Ana, Nejc Šarabon, Boštjan Žvanut, eds. 2017. Zdravje delovno aktivne populacije ▪︎ Health of the Working-Age Population. Proceedings. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem/University of Primorska Press
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e therapeutic approach as an important
intervention in the implementation
of the program Project learning
for young adults (PUM-O)
Nataša Demšar Pečak
The Family Study and Research Centre, Gorazdova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
natasa.dp1@gmail.com
Abstract
This article presents the program Project Learning for Young Adults”
(PUM-O), the main purpose of which is to develop the potential of
vulnerable young adults for successful integration into education, the
development of professional identity and successful integration into
the labour market and successful social integration. These young adults
have different reasons for abandoning education and lack of work
experience therefore; they have difficulties to find employment. Due to
the impaired mental health of individuals, the program is the only way
out of the current plight and the only possibility of re-control of their
lives, as well as successful confrontation with various problems. Because
the program is not a therapeutic one and the mentors generally are not
therapists, it is extremely important that the mentors in the program,
unless they are also therapists, include other relational therapists. With
the majority of the participants, their relational needs are not satisfied,
so this deficit is reflects in loneliness, dissatisfaction, fear, despair, self-
injuring, aimless vegetating, violence, depression and various addictions.
Many participants from mentors-therapists for the first time experience
safe, compassionate and respectful relations, as well as a sense of
acceptance and value, which results in a change of symptomatic deep-
rooted patterns of interpersonal interaction. Program participants
also experienced a therapeutic approach of mentors-therapists as an
important intervention for getting new positive experience on which
they acquire functional activity and better contact with themselves.
Key words: mental health, young adults, therapeutic approach,
intervention, interpersonal relations
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-7023-32-9.47-53
intervention in the implementation
of the program Project learning
for young adults (PUM-O)
Nataša Demšar Pečak
The Family Study and Research Centre, Gorazdova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
natasa.dp1@gmail.com
Abstract
This article presents the program Project Learning for Young Adults”
(PUM-O), the main purpose of which is to develop the potential of
vulnerable young adults for successful integration into education, the
development of professional identity and successful integration into
the labour market and successful social integration. These young adults
have different reasons for abandoning education and lack of work
experience therefore; they have difficulties to find employment. Due to
the impaired mental health of individuals, the program is the only way
out of the current plight and the only possibility of re-control of their
lives, as well as successful confrontation with various problems. Because
the program is not a therapeutic one and the mentors generally are not
therapists, it is extremely important that the mentors in the program,
unless they are also therapists, include other relational therapists. With
the majority of the participants, their relational needs are not satisfied,
so this deficit is reflects in loneliness, dissatisfaction, fear, despair, self-
injuring, aimless vegetating, violence, depression and various addictions.
Many participants from mentors-therapists for the first time experience
safe, compassionate and respectful relations, as well as a sense of
acceptance and value, which results in a change of symptomatic deep-
rooted patterns of interpersonal interaction. Program participants
also experienced a therapeutic approach of mentors-therapists as an
important intervention for getting new positive experience on which
they acquire functional activity and better contact with themselves.
Key words: mental health, young adults, therapeutic approach,
intervention, interpersonal relations
doi: https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-7023-32-9.47-53
