ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

Folie à deux is a psychological term referring to the situation when two or more people share the same delusion. Delusions are funny things, and difficult to disprove, particularly when more than one person starts seeing them. This all relates to Mary, who taught me about love, and trust, and delusions, and perceptions - and ultimately what matters most. **************************************** It seemed strange that the doctor didn't request physical therapy as well, I thought, as I watched Mary limp down the hallway in a traditional hemiplegic gait pattern while using a quad cane. I remembered practicing that Trendelenberg gait in college with my classmates, accentuating the weakness of the hip abductors. The difference here was that Mary certainly wasn't faking or pretending with her newly acquired gait pattern. A serious look was on her face, and her arm was clenched tightly to her side in an angry and tense position. In college I guess we really didn’t stop to think about ...

I wanted to write some Christmas-theme entries this month but I ironically have not had the time. Life can sometimes get very busy. Being busy is precisely the topic I wanted to discuss. Adult occupational behavior around the holidays is fascinating to study. I don't want to get into a lengthy treatise about the meaning of shopping - but let's face it - is holiday shopping a healthy or unhealthy occupational experience? Watch adults in the mall and you will understand the question. Western societies are consumer-oriented. Corporations spend untold billions of dollars based on our classification as consumers. Consumer-focused messages are reinforced by cultural practices that remind us what grouping we are in and how that fits in with our status as occupational and social beings. So, I am sent messages that this is my 'prime' as a human being on the planet. These are my 'productive' years - I am past the tumult of young adulthood and this time is prior to the tum...

For various reasons I have been called to task regarding an analysis of what I believe in - and I thought that the philosophical definitions are important so I wanted to yell them to the rafters, so to speak. Issues of internal consistency are important to me, so I was interested to find that my work vs. non-work need for evidence was quite different. I'm still not entirely sure how to resolve that issue – perhaps it is not important. Anyway... Superstitions often stem from folklore or historical reinforcement of confusion between causation and correlation. Common response experiences and confounding variables contribute heavily to confusion that is then reinforced through repetition. In this sequence of events, superstition translates to mythology and there is high risk for it to be further transmitted into tradition. I am aware of the debate, but count me among those who believe that 'folk psychology' is real. I know that eliminative materialists will take me to task, but...