I don’t remember the last time I ripped open my BJOT with gusto, but last month, I really did! “Mothers experiences of engaging in Occupational Performance Coaching ” Fi Graham, Silvia Rodger and Jenny Zivani, gives a clear voice to what those of us OTs who coach, have known for sometime – coaching has a clear and effective role to play in OT practice. It can be at the heart of our intervention, not just an add on. Without…
An American researcher called George Vaillent set up a longitudinal study with a group of male students at Harvard Medical School in the 1940’s to try to review their levels of happiness as they traveled through their lives. Last year, in a Radio 4 interview he concluded that the word happiness is in itself a misleading word as it smacks of ‘getting lucky’ or just hedonistic self-gratification. But most interestingly he identified that the men in his study who…
I have been very fortunate to experience both traditional and non-traditional approaches to my work as a role emerging (RE) OT. I have always been fascinated by the concept of colour as a therapeutic medium, and for 25+ years have attended training courses to explore this concept. I graduated in 2000 with BSc (Hons) OT and completed a ‘basic grade rotation’ before being offered a Senior II post. Simultaneously I was developing myself as a self-employed therapist using ‘complementary approaches’,…
I have had a growing awareness lately of the differences between my health mentor and my long standing coach. I sought a “new” approach regarding my health and well-being, not because my existing coach wasn’t sufficiently skilled to tackle this, but because I have long respected the position and stance of this particular health mentor and, as with most of my decisions, it just felt the right thing to do! What I have started to appreciate is the very…
Shifting away from a “deficit- conflict” approach can be hard for traditional therapists. Not only are we battling with our training which has often asked us to identify problems and place them at the cornerstone of our assessment, culturally our clients are all too well trained to identify what’s “wrong” them – we all are. As OT’s we are no exception, having a goodly dollop of medical model still flavouring our practice at times. Positive psychology has at its…
I uttered those words when I attended my first coach training weekend back in 2005. I remember sitting there feeling quite “put out” as topics such as communication, listening, motivation, life skills etc. reared their head. I was seething. “we do this anyway! We’ve been doing this in OT for years! Grrr” these “coaches” need to learn a from our profession, not the other way round…what am I doing here?!” For once I glued my mouth shut and waited.…
In preparing to speak to several physical therapists last month, I found a brilliant article in the Osteopathy literature, which I felt held lots of interest for those wanting to integrate a coach approach with OT or use some coaching skills alongside their existing OT practise. The full title is “Health-coaching strategies to improve patient centred outcomes” by Susan Butterworth, who takes a Motivational Interviewing approach to coaching (Although strictly speaking MI is not coaching, much of MI is…
People often come to coaching saying “I am really stressed, completed overloaded and I want to make time for myself/get some stuff out of my hair – then I will feel better”. In OT we also recognize this, be it the cry you hear yourself making, or your clients/service users who are looking for healthier occupational balance. As a coach and having been a human being for quite a while now, I have noticed the glorious way, that nature deftly…
Work, life balance is always hard to achieve but sometimes you have to manage your life in a different way to achieve that essential balance between your professional and personal goals. I was motivated to re-evaluate my life, after working in statutory services for a number of years and realising that I was missing my young’s son nativity because in the words of my manager ‘it was not in the strategic interests of the organisation to allow me time off…
Jill Maglio founded CircusAid in 2016. Jill is a certified occupational therapist and the director of Holistic Circus Therapy (HCT), a registered and accredited private practice that combines occupational therapy with circus arts to address the unique health and well-being needs of individuals and communities. Jill has been researching circus and occupational therapy for over 12 years in Australia, Europe, South East Asia and the United States. Upon the completion of a Master of Occupational Therapy Practice degree from La…
