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 any profession that attempts to improve an individual's health by engaging them in the daily meaningful activities or occupation. Through the occupations, their strengths and barriers to their functioning are identified. This helps the therapist to come up with a program that includes activities that can help them live a more fulfilling life. For a therapist to undertake this role, he/she must be a fully registered as a medical professional with the necessary qualifications.

In this case, the "occupation" in this case does not solely mean work. It is used to refer to any activity that an individual is engaged. It therefore includes activities at the workplace as well as home. Some examples include the personal hygiene, socializing, preparing a meal, painting, managing finances, and engaging in leisure activities. The therapists in this category use occupation to enhance the client's ability to live a meaningful and a more satisfying life.

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 sole purpose of this therapy is to help individuals live life to the fullest potential. In order to achieve this, the therapists have the role of helping the clients to consider their abilities, needs, interests, and strengths. In addition to this, the client's physical, social, as well as the cultural environment are also considered.

In the mental occupational therapy, the target is to treat the person as a whole, whether the problems are emanating from the physical or mental health. Today, the practice can be seen in diverse settings such as the hospitals, the outpatients, intermediate care facilities, skilled nursing facilities, work place, home, and community programs among others.

The target of the this therapy in the area of mental illness specifically targets to offer a full treatment to the person as a whole. The practice is widely used in several areas of medical profession. It can be seen in settings such as hospitals, nursing facilities, outpatients, in the work places, home based health programs, and community programs. It is a beneficial practice particularly in life skill training, cognitive rehabilitation, life balance intervention, interpersonal skill training and several other areas in life.




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