The Power Of Occupational Therapy In Mental Health

By Edna Booker


For a successful treatment of any mental health case, there must be collaboration between several health professionals each with distinctive roles to play. In addition to the medical professionals like the doctors, the nurses, the counselors, the social workers, and the therapists, the patient's caregivers, teachers, support providers, and aides also have a role to play. The occupational therapy in mental health is part of the collaborative process that brings other players in a collaborative approach with the purpose of reaching a specific goal of improving the client's quality of life.

The occupational therapy is a profession that is concerned with the promotion of an individual well-being through the meaningful activities (occupations) that people engage in. The main goal is identifying the strengths and barriers to the individual functioning so as to help them participate in the necessary and the desired activities that can help them live a fulfilling life. As such, the therapists in this category are fully registered medical professionals and play the role of improving the client's functional activities through the engagement in occupation.

Through this approach, the client is able to identify the most appropriate occupations and engage in them at home or at work. This in turn is important as it helps the client to regain a sense of self-esteem, achievement, and the general well-being that had been affected by injury.

The mental health occupational therapist is not very different. He relies on the client-centered approach as the means of gaining a deeper understanding of factors that relates to an individual occupations and the environment that have influence to their mental health and their overall functioning. Through the engagement in the occupations that are meaningful and purposeful, the client is able to regain a sense of achievement, well-being, and self-esteem that was affected by the illness or injury.

The client is then helped to engage in meaningful and purposeful occupations which in turn help them to regain some sense of fulfillment, achievement, self-esteem, and wellbeing as a whole. This helps them recover what was lost through brain injury or the related illness.

The process starts by the assessment of the functional abilities. In this stage, the client's ability to manage work related roles and home related roles are determined. The ability to participate in activities in pursuits of the same is also assessed.

When dealing with an individual that has any form of a mental condition, the occupational therapist can employ a variety of the assessment techniques to help get the necessary information. The information is then used to create a personalized occupational profile that can be used for the purpose of goal-setting, and for treatment planning. The common areas of intervention include the life skills training, the cognitive rehabilitation, supported education, social and interpersonal skills training, life balance intervention, supported education and the modalities like the mindfulness and biofeedback.

The practice has been beneficial in several areas of interventions including the life skill training, supported employment, supported education, cognitive rehabilitation, social and interpersonal skills training, life balance intervention and even different modalities like mindfulness and biofeedback.




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