ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

In this blog and in my textbook I have expressed some concerns about application of occupational therapy theory into distal contexts that are only marginally related to the profession.  Specifically, I have stated that although concerns about topics including the climate and social justice are fine areas for people to be interested in, we are obligated to consider whether or not application of these concepts to the occupational therapy process is generative or distracting. It is my opinion that these topics are frequently distracting, and that they confuse our stakeholders. I revisited this topic just last year when prompted by a colleague who was wondering if I ' revisited my thinking ' on the topic.  At that time, I doubled down on my criticism. One of my favorite quotes is from Konrad Lorenz, the renowned (and infamous, I suppose) ethologist, "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast: it keeps him you

  I know that sometimes I start stories and they don't always get finished.  Sometimes that happens because there is no ending - or at least there is not an ending to be found with the framing I was using. That was always the nature of my private practice - and my hesitancy in discharging children and their families. Who is to say that any person's needs are completely addressed? Or that as a therapist I was able to generate a perfect and complete answer that would persist over time? Sometimes the stories I think about finished themselves and were easy to write even if it hurt.  Sometimes the stories needed some kind of ending punctuation -  a final act from the therapist. I keep thinking about one story that did not seem to have an ending, so I thought I would visit with it again. I might have found an ending. +++ I wrote, "I guess now we will see what happens next." Xinren never came back. I never heard from the family again.  I don't actually know what happen

Please click on and read all of the links - they include critical information that is required for this analysis.   A little over four years ago I stated that there are too many occupational therapy educational programs in New York State .  At the NYSOTA conference legislative information session in 2023 I stood up and suggested that we should all stop taking jobs at these institutions that were seeking to develop new programs.  I thought that if we did not take those jobs that the problem would be solved.  That was not realistic or correct, even if the intention was good. Well karma tends to strike when you make public pronouncements, so I thought I should expand on my perspectives on this topic. At current count there are still ~22 occupational therapy programs and ~11 occupational therapy assistant programs in NY.  Most of the programs are delivered at the master's level.  There are a very small number of entry level doctoral programs, but some of the current master's progra