What "Occupational Therapy" IS and How it Was "Invented"?

I returned to college to study occupational therapy in my mid 30's, so maybe it was the perspective from being older that made me soak in the historical aspects of the theories and those who came up with them. I wasn't a tremendous fan of history as a kid, and I remember my mother saying how valuable history is because you can change how you do things today in order to have a different outcome.  I'm glad that 'stuck' to me in my formative years.

I'd found out about the OT program at Colorado State University when I was in my early 20s, after my business program adviser had said 'you do so well in your health classes, maybe you should go study something other than business'.  Interestingly, HE didn't direct me to the OT building door, I happened to buy a home from an engineering student who was graduating and his fiance was graduating in occupational therapy.  It's not all that well known what it is -- most of the time when I say I'm an occupational therapist the person a minute later asks me something about my being a physical therapist. 

Basically, how it came about was during World War I the US Army had so many soldiers injured that they were warehoused and being given exercises to strengthen whatever the PTs wanted them to be doing to strengthen and many of them were SO debilitated mentally/emotionally that a 'reconstruction aid' got the idea to have them help with painting, woodworking, gardening and incorporate the movements that would accomplish the use of the body in the way the 'uninspiring' exercises would.  Today, if you have PT to provide the base needs and OT to reinforce that and bring another perspective to the team for that patient/person while applying it to functional activities the person needs to 'do' to get back to being as close to their capacity as possible it's a very potent piece of the health care team.  Good physicians will appreciate the input of therapists and refer their patients for treatment in order to have more input even. 

I grew up in the mountains of Colorado, so I literally had a mountain outside my back door and it allowed for daily hiking or snowshoeing for me from an early age.  My dad was very active and had grown up in Chicago and his parents had a summer cabin in Wisconsin, where he had a friend who was very athletic and routed my father into many activities that I would later learn and enjoy. He and my mom did a pretty good job with their limited resources (resources are time, energy, money) to get us swimming, bowling, skiing, tennis, etc.  We'd drive almost an hour to see a couple of movies a year in Denver, and out to eat on a few special occasions. 

But mostly there was a lot of work to do around the property.  Dirt to make gardens out of (flower and vegetable), trees to make into firewood, animals to feed and put up fencing for, lots of snow to shovel and plow (dad, me on assistant and shovel in hand).  My dad did all the work on the cars himself in the old days and I assisted with that from a very early age.   For some reason he did he didn't teach me his other big hobby, which was golf.  I think he thought of that as a man's game from his days caddying in the 1930s on the course in the community where their family cabin was in Wisconsin.  He did not do any kind of 'hobby' though that wasn't a sport -- all his free time went into being 'active', nothing calming that required an 'absorbing' of mental focus and attention like tying flies, woodcarving, or painting.  He was an avid reader but didn't read a full book, something I'm finding myself doing now in middle age myself!  

He did not do woodworking but when I was in my mid 20s I married someone who did.  He was just learning and just divorced and so that usually translates into broke, and the way 'we' (meaning he) got all the woodworking equipment over the years was to build something for someone for the cost of the wood plus what he needed to buy the next piece of machinery.  I did all the finish work as he had health problems that made him sensitive to the chemicals.  Well, then I got sick with what's now called 'chronic fatigue syndrome', which occurs whenever you get too many stressors on your body/mind/spirit (as we look at it in 'integrative medicine'.  I helped with the wood working part by holding big pieces of wood when being cut or assembled and did lots of the sanding and then after I realized my health was impacted by the finishing chemicals I was around for finishing, we took the pieces to someone who had the contract for Black Eyed Pea for their restaurant interior wood pieces.  I took the first piece, a buffet, to be finished by myself and when he helped me unload it he said 'who ARE you people?  This is the best work I've ever seen!'  

Ironically, 20 years later back I ended up for a couple of years now helping a friend in his wood shop, (whose southern recipes can be found in the Nutrition section / Foods Forum, "Pablo Blanco" is the title.  Recently I helped with some fixes, gave opinions due to my expertise with woodworking and helped with the big "glue up" and finishing of a BEAUTIFUL buffet!

I recorded him doing a 'how to make gumbo' video when his beloved New Orleans Saints were in (and won) the Super Bowl 2010, and he said that there were two things that taught him patience; cooking and woodworking.  I think it's a wonderful example of how what we can chose to do with some of the time we have available enriches our life.

I thought later about what all I'd learned when I did woodworking before.  I learned I had spatial orientation  problems, which have since been diagnosed and "therapized" by Lynn Hellerstein and her staff.  Dr. Hellerstein has a book in the Children's Academic Success Forum which actually is information I've used with success with most of my patients. (It generally is not helpful with patients who have more advanced dementia conditions.)  I learned that I am NOT as patient a person as I appear outwardly.  I learned about researching things more when you take them on because of the way I got multiple chemical sensitivity and chronic fatigue syndrome in part from the wood finishing chemicals (the 20 minute, free video on Lumigrate on Chronic Illness: Full Barrel Syndrome explains how it's multiple factors that cause chronic illness, by the way). 

But mostly I learned about collaborating on a project with someone.  Taking it from conceptualization and drawing through when it is sitting in your house giving you the immense satisfaction of knowing that you made it!  I only have one piece from those days of woodworking in my past and I cherish the router 'divit' it has, as I remember it was the first time I routered anything.  I relish the glassy feel of my trademark finish I 'invented' (which was six coats put on my hand with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper -- and latex gloves dissolved so I didn't use gloves -- my bad!  I get just as much satisfaction from the needlework I also got into in those days, taught to me by my stepdaughter at the time.  Those were given as gifts because for be it for me to make something and keep it for myself, and returned to me with the closing of my parents second home. Needlework gave me something to be doing with my hands and mind back in the days before I learned to just enjoy having time not being 'busy' all the time.  

I hope this has helped you understand how YOU can be your own occupational therapist in a way, and also how they function as part of a health care 'team' with YOU in the center of that team.