Sustaining the Art of Practice in Occupational Therapy

Abstract

The art of practice in occupational therapy is intrinsically centered on relationships, on the qualities that make relationships meaningful, and on the meaning of occupation in a life. Demands from today's health care system make it increasingly difficult for practitioners to engage in meaningful relationships with their patients. The art of practice, jeopardized by the health care system, requires sustenance from other sources. A new field, literature and medicine, suggests a source of sustenance for the art of occupational therapy practice. The reading of fictional literature can provide occupational therapists with sustaining images that can reaffirm their commitment to the art of providing occupation as therapy.

Interpersonal Skills for Practice: An Elective Course

“…Because fictional stories also exemplify the powerful exchanges that occur in health care practice, readers may want to refer to earlier bibliographies published in this journal (Peloquin, 1989(Peloquin, , 1990.…”

Emotion management and occupational therapy student learning on placement: A post-structuralist exploration

“…The profession's adaptation to the managerialist, medically dominated health service in the UK (Clouston and Whitcombe, 2008) has challenged some of the central tenets of the profession's philosophy such as holism and client centred practice. This ambivalence has been a part of the profession for many years and was exposed over thirty years ago by Peloquin (1989). The ambivalence itself was often the site of some emotional turmoil for students.…”

“…Occupational therapists work within the same professional milieus and deal with similar potentially emotionally challenging situations on a daily basis. Although there have been some seminal publications about the role of spirituality, empathy and caring in the profession for example, Peloquin (1989) and Egan (2007) which allude to the emotional dimensions of our practice, there has not been any specific exploration of emotional labour or emotion management within the occupational therapy profession. The exceptions to this are Clouder's 2006 article exploring caring as a threshold concept in occupational therapy student learning and the recent published articles which explore emotional intelligence and occupational therapy (Chaffey, Unsworth and Fossey, 2012;McKenna and Melson, 2013;Andonian, 2013).…”

Accentuate the Positive: Reflections on Empathic Interpersonal Interactions

“…In general, our scholars have described empathy as a creative skill (Peloquin, 1989). Anne Mosey (1981) referred to the art of practice as the capacity to empathize with another individual.…”