Professional identity in occupational therapy

Abstract

The profession of occupational therapy was founded on the core concept that active participation in meaningful occupation has a positive impact on health and wellbeing. When a profession owns a strong identity it is able to practice true to its beliefs. The professional identity of occupational therapists in the United Kingdom has been shown to have waxed and waned over time. While a strong, occupation focussed identity was initially established, this was shown to have suffered significant loss by the 1960s. The increasing regeneration of the profession’s identity today affords greater acceptance, influence and allows practitioners to ‘be’ occupational therapists.

This thesis has evaluated the author’s contribution to this regeneration through her works published. Using the History of Ideas methodology, the thesis demonstrates how her initial work began to consolidate the profession’s identity by drawing boundaries around professional practice of the day in the field of physical dysfunction. Appraisal of her exploration of the profession’s core concept and development of its philosophy demonstrates how she guided its increased centralisation within professional practice. The thesis also appraises the increased centrality of the core concept to professional thinking through her authorship of texts, curricula and academic papers. It explains how she facilitated the understanding of complex theories through the creation of new and innovative explanations.

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning was used to appraise how the author’s works were both proactive and reactive to the profession’s developing academic ability through the creation of academically appropriate debate. While early works were necessarily descriptive and didactic, evaluation demonstrates how a rising level of academic skill was used to critically appraise the causes and consequences of the profession’s issues with its identity and create an understanding of how the situation could be addressed. Lastly the thesis presents the positive impact of are generating professional identity.

Date of Award	Apr 2018
Original language	English
Supervisor	Daniel Kerr (Supervisor), Mary Hannon-Fletcher (Supervisor) & Patricia McClure (Supervisor)