Syndicated from the Bipolar Blog
When you have bipolar disorder, you hear a lot about what a psychiatrist and psychotherapist can do for you, but you rarely hear about and may never even consider consulting an occupational therapist (OT). And why would you? OTs are trained to assist people with physical disabilities, right? People who are visually or hearing impaired, confined to wheel chairs, paralyzed, and so forth?
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Great article. AOTA has recently launched a new online community http://www.otconnections.org and topics such as this one are discussed in the forums. Feel free to ask and participate
Completely Anonymous
12:40 pm on
December 11th, 2008I have to admit that the idea of getting involved in a personally tailored, occupational therapy program is extremely appealing. While I’m currently working and plenty functional, I think there’s an obsessive element of laziness (or avoidance) at work in many areas of my life and OT sounds like the closest thing that I believe would be helpful; standard therapies have not been very effective.
ollamok ardnas
6:24 pm on
April 22nd, 2009What courses really qualify them for this? Are they not expanding too much?
RE: ollamok ardnas
I am currently an occupational therapy student. We are required in my program to take general, abnormal, and developmental psychology courses (minimum of those 3) as pre-requisites for our master’s program. While in OT school, we also have a course dedicated to mental health, and a required fieldwork experience (40 hours) in mental health. OTs who are interested in this area of work can opt to do one of their two Level II (3 months) fieldworks in a mental health setting.
Occupational therapy got its start in mental health nearly 100 years ago. Only 3% of OTs work in mental health today, because mental health is such a poorly funded service in our country, among other reasons. However, OTs are well trained to work with people with mental illness. Although it is NOT the same thing as bipolar I or II, depression is extremely common in many clients an OT will see in his/her lifetime, simply due to the severe stress of being chronically ill or injured. Our coursework prepares us well for these encounters.
I hope that answers your question!
OTs also MUST participate in continuing education (I believe it’s 24 hours every 2 years…) to keep their license. The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) offers continuing education courses in mental health so that an OT working in this setting can really hone his or her skills.
With the risk of being annoying (if anyone ever even sees this…) I have one more link to share!
http://www.aota.org/Consumers/Professionals/WhatIsOT/MH.aspx
This is a link to some articles (not pertaining to BP disorder) about some instances where OTs have worked with mental illness. This is by no means a comprehensive example.
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