Hello All:
Last week, a student drafted the following paper for me to read. It
was NOT written as an assignment or required work.
I find his insight and passion to be both intellectually and
professionally stimulating. With the student's permission, I want to
share it with the OT now list.
I hope you find it as enlightening as I did.
Thanks,
Ron
<<<<<<<<<< original text follows >>>>>>>>>>
OT from the heart: This is what Occupational Therapy is to me.
Do you ever wonder what life is all about? Do you ever struggle with
what your role in life is or will be? Questions like, "Where am I,
and what am I doing here?", often run through my mind. For the first
time in years I feel that I may have an answer to those ever lingering
truth-seeking questions.
I've known my whole life that I wanted to help and serve people in a
way that I could impact someone forever. I believe that there is no
better way to impact someone than to address and serve individuals
specific needs. Occupational therapy will allow me to accomplish
this, to serve people on a level that is at the center of life. This
is where I want to be, the very core of living.
What is an occupation anyway? Occupations are anything in life that
we as humans do to have fun, take care of ourselves, or be productive.
What this translates to in my mind is that anything we do of meaning
is an occupation. As a result, without your occupations, you have
lost all your life's meaning. An example of an occupation in my life
is exercising because it makes me feel productive and brings me a high
level satisfaction. If I weren't able to exercise any longer, then I
would have an occupational deficit. As an OT, my goal would be to
empower my client to once again learn how to exercise either the way,
he/she use to or in a new way. Another example of an occupation would
be using the toilet or making a meal which can be very critical in
one's happiness and survival.
I believe that our lives are made of occupations, and without our
occupations we are without life. There have been studies that shown
the fact that infants need the occupation of being cared for by a
caregiver in order to live and grow. To me this demonstrates how we,
as humans of all ages, have an internal and critical need for our
occupations and without them we are without life.
This is what I meant when I said that Occupational Therapy is at the
core of life. Occupations are life, and there is nothing more real
than that. This is the beauty of Occupational Therapy, the capability
to help enable people to restore their occupations which restores
their lives. Occupational therapy addresses people lives (occupations)
when other health care professionals only look at the physiological or
physical body. What does this mean to you? In my life, it means I
may have found an answer to the questions I posed in paragraph one.
It means that I have the ability to empower occupations and
essentially empower life, and that is what its all about.
--
Ron Carson MHS, OTR/L
Assistant Professor
University of Saint Augustine
1 University Blvd.
St. Augustine, FL 32086
904.826.0084
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