ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

Thought exercise: Take special note of the 'Service to society' section  [my emphasis added]. Are we still providing this service?  Or are we now chasing some other objectives that are out of  sync with this original intent? REPRINTED FROM: CAREERS FOR WOMEN EDITED BY CATHERINE FILENE THE OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST MARJORIE B. GREENE Registrar, Boston School of Occupational Therapy  Boston, 1920.     Description of occupation Occupational therapy is one of the new professions for young women. The necessity and importance of this work was firmly established in military hospitals during the late war and its future success is secure. The civilian hospitals are waiting for trained workers, and we believe that it is but a short time before every hospital and institution will employ at least one aide. The training is designed to develop not only artistic and mechanical skill and dexterity, but also ability to cooperate with every...

In her famous Slagle lecture, Reilly describes the importance of criticism in professions in general and in occupational therapy in particular.  She stated that "...a card-carrying critic must do more than merely engage in critical thinking. Judgments made by a critic must emerge from a discreet use of techniques which are difficult to master and dangerous to apply. Basically, the skill is dependent upon an ability to analyze, interpret and synthesize. A critic must have a sharply developed capacity to see deficiencies in data and fallacies in interpretation. The best stock in trade that any critic has is a discerning eye for trends and an ability to pattern and verbalize them. Whether a critic is worth listening to is usually decided by an ability to use language well, by a creativeness in synthesizing new relations and by courage to propose provocative hypotheses. Ultimately, however, a good critic rests his case upon how well he has been able to restructure the i...