Occupational Therapy in Mental Health

1. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health productive - meets needs of being purposeful and creative • Definitions of Occupational Therapy in Mental Health: • Occupational therapists (OTs) believe in „occupation for health“ (Wilcock, 1999) occupational therapists are concerned with individual's quality of life of how their engage in satisfactory and meaningful occupations. OTs have a deep appreciation of the occupational nature of humans, of the relationship between health and occupation, and of how occupations can be used to influence health. • OTs focus on occupational performance. OTs are centrally concerned with how individuals function in work, leisure, domestic life and personal self care. For OTs, a healthy person is one able to perform his or her daily occupations to a satisfying (for the person) and effective level. • OTs believe in the importance of participation and of being active in life situations. OTs aim to assist individuals who feel excluded, isolated, empty or worthless to feel part of their social world. • OTs value the therapeutic potential of meaningful and purposeful activities to promote health and well-being. Individuals are seen as innately active beings. Through being active we learn about ourselves, develop our capabilities and maintain our physical/mental health. • OTs view persons holistically as unique individuals who have particular life experiences, interests, needs, skills, problems and motivations arising out of their particular social and cultural background, connecting them to others and fulfil basic needs. • OTs aim to take a person/client-centred approach to practice. learning tool – develops skills Fulfills basic needs knowledge, competence and mastery Value of Activity both the process of doing and the end-product structures time play, pleasure and social interaction and connection allows expression and exploration of feelings stimulation and activation • One key skill used by OTs is the ability to analyse the component parts of an activity in order to use it purposefully, meaningfully and therapeutically. Fig. 1 Value of Activities • Occupational Therapy is premised on the idea that purposeful activities can be therapeutic and can be used to improve individual's functioning when used in a way that is meaningful to the person. One of the OT skills is to being able toapply activity in the treatment process, valueing the inherent properties of activities, the experience of “doing“ and the end product. • OTs attend to emotional, cognitive, physical and social dimension, in the context of the person's wider life style. cooking woodwork printing - discussion art Computer-Games social skills- training Task Activities reminiscence Reality orientation dance anxiety- management games Work stimulation gardening projective art psychodrama creative therapy men's group Psychotherapy Activities counselling play therapy creative- writing • Occupational balance is a key concept in the occupational therapy practice. Often misunderstood as the balance between work, play and rest, it is, in fact, a much more complex and holistic concept related to balance in life style and tasks. Balance is about the relationship between a person, their occupations and their worlds. It means being able to engage in a diverse range of meaningful and purposeful occupations in order to meet our needs. Environment Person Occupational Identity Volition Habituation Performance capacity Participation Performance Occupational Adaptation Skill Occupational competence Fig. 3 The Model of Human Occupation (Kielhofner, 1995) is commonly used within mental health occupational therapy as it views the client as an active participant within therapy and encourages a holistic view. Focus:Task↔ Education ↔Social↔ Communication↔ Psychotherapy Aim: maintain and gain, practise encourage experience support express and develop functional and develop social interaction and sharing explore performance skills knowlegde and and leisure feelings skills Reference: Finlay, L. (2004). The Practice of Psychosocial Occupational Therapy. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. Fig. 2 Spectrum of Occupational Therapy Activities For more information contact the Occupational Therapy Department in MUH and Carraig Mór - 11.05.2009