Disability and Work: A Difficult but Possible Association. Contribution and Challenges of Life Design

Introduction: In the second half of the last century a number of publications addressed the treatment and inclusion of individuals with different impairments and disabilities. Very few of them were devoted to looking for ways to increase these individuals’ likelihood of experiencing satisfactory life conditions and professional realization. On the other hand, even vocational guidance, career education, and career counseling scholars, albeit privileging the analysis of inter-individual differences, have actually neglected to apply the results of their research to vulnerable population. So much so that Blustein (2001) was prompted to say that “we have developed an elegant science about the work lives of a small proportion of individuals who live in relative affluence in Western countries. Yet, our research has essentially neglected the work lives of the rest of humanity who work primarily to fulfill their basic needs and/or to care for their children and other family members”. (p. 170). Over the last decade some signs of increased interest by academics and counselors in vulnerable population and in individuals with disability have been recorded. This may also be due to the devastating effects on such groups of people of the current socio-economic crisis, which is particularly hard for those more at risk for unemployment and both underground and low qualified jobs. At this regards, it is relevant the contribution coming from the health and social services with proposals of actual “work rehabilitation” programs, given that work placement could represent the most certain efficacy index of any rehabilitative model (see Liberman, 1992; Medley, et al., 2010; Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; Keyes & Haidt, 2003). Additionally, almost all the models and approaches that today inspire vocational guidance, career education, and career counseling scholars strongly emphasize the analysis of intra- and inter-individual differences, such as those associated with gender (Heppner, 2013), impairments (Fabian & Pebdani, 2013), poverty (Juntunen, Ali, & Pierantonio, 2013), learning difficulties (Morgan, Farkas, & Wu, 2009; Seo, Abbott, & Hawkins, 2008), and those due to language, ethnic, cultural, and religious reasons (Fouad & Kantamneni, 2013). Most career counselors are aware of this complexity and show thoughts, concerns, and ideas on challenges from their profession and on the future of it (Soresi, Heppner, Nota, & Heppner, 2011). By means of an analysis that aims to highlight strengths weakness, opportunities and treats (SWOT analysis) (Ferrari & Soresi, 2013) it can be concluded that practitioners are aware that vocational counseling and career counseling can be useful to help people. They understand especially the importance of the need to implement interventions favoring the at risk groups and those suffering forms of social exclusions, experiencing stereotyping, intolerance, and perpetuating disadvantages due to socio-economic and gender differences and to disability. In line with what said above, and with the emphasis Life Design (LD) perspective attributes to equal opportunities and prevention, more attention should be paid to people with greater needs, both at research and practice level. This chapter: (1) recalls the innovative trends that are currently underlying the cultural-scientific debate on the issues of choice and of the realization and work inclusion of individuals with impairments and disabilities; (2) underlines the role that can be played by some important and ‘positive’ constructs which are essential to LD; and (3) summarizes competences and attitudes that should characterize LD counselors.