What to Expect From a Mental Health Occupational Therapist
Updated: Apr 4
Life is all about involving in meaningful daily occupations or activities like gardening, preparing food, walking, doing the laundry, painting, or playing with your kids. Occupations in your life explain who you are and how you feel about yourselves. Occupational therapists bring meaning to life by the interpersonal social rhythm therapy.
Occupational therapy identifies that daily occupational involvement impacts physical and mental health. Mental disorders like bipolar disorder, depression, personality disorder, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and psychosis can affect an individual’s capacity for involving in meaningful activities.
Role of a Mental Health Occupational Therapist
Mental health occupational therapists employ an array of occupational and psychological therapy methods for helping people know and deal with their regular activities. Moreover, they believe that involvement in purposeful and meaningful activities contributes to an individual reacquiring confidence, wellbeing, and a sense of accomplishment that may have been impacted by their mental disorders.
Mental health occupational therapists work with many people throughout the lifetime with a client-centric method for having an insight into different factors influencing their part in daily activities incorporating environment, motivation, mental and physical capabilities, and learned patterns and behaviors.
Mental health occupational therapists employ group and individual activities and programs for winning over every obstacle that hinders their capacity of participating in daily life activities. These specialists also help in developmental conditions like ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and can help kids who struggle with medical issues like juvenile diabetes or cystic fibrosis.
What Can You Expect From A Mental Health Occupational Therapist?
Occupational therapy starts with an assessment. The specialist will fix an occupational therapy assessment procedure. However, if you know what you can expect from the therapist, it can help you support for what you need to get from the therapy procedure.
A mental health occupational therapist can:
Ease participation in daily living activities.
Help clients grow the expertise required for self-reliant living like handling one’s house, cooking food, and availing the community.
Assess and adjust the ambiance at school, work, home, and other areas for promoting a person’s ultimate activities.
Help clients handle emotions and stress more easily.
Delve into vocational interests and education and acquire a meaningful job.
Grow communication skills
Work with clients for building and involving in social and leisure interests.
Improved structured routine creation.
Offer assessment and therapy for sensory processing shortage.
Offer educational programs for addressing self-awareness, assertiveness, stress handling, social and interpersonal skills, and role building.
How to Be More Engaged In the Occupational Therapy Assessment Procedure
Not just your occupational therapist should ask you questions but also you should ask him/her questions about interpersonal social rhythm therapy to ensure that his/her services are a better fit. In case there is an area of life that you think will affect your healing that he/she does not mention, make sure to bring it up. In case there is something you don’t understand, enquire, and in case you think of queries afterward or beforehand, just write them down.