Degree escalation and doctoral education are sinking the occupational therapy profession

Occupational therapy started on a simple premise - that man, through the use of his hands as they are energized by mind and will, can influence the state of his own health.  That statement was provided to the profession by Mary Reilly, our greatest theoretician.It is a simple concept, borne out of a core philosophy of pragmatism and infused with a dose of all the good intentions of the moral treatment movement.  If you carefully read that core philosophy of occupational therapy you will hear the Emersonian reverberations of self-reliance: ' Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. '  That is what occupational therapy seeks to nurture in the spirit of people: Independence, harmony with the self, harmony with nature, and a satisfaction in authentic work and effort and purpose and meaning.Occupational therapy is a concept that was designed to create solutions for the problems of living - and was field tested in the settlement house projects of Chicago and Boston, in the gardens of Consolation House, in the pottery and rug making and other craftwork shops along the Eastern seaboard from Massachusetts to Newfoundland to Labrador, and then in the base hospitals in Europe during the Great War.  Do things with your own hands, be productive, find meaning - and you can heal your own life.In the last twenty years it has been determined in the United States that the occupational therapy idea is so complex that it requires graduate degree training and n...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs