issues within Occupational therapy
As a working professional in the helping field, I understand that issues will arise at some point. With this in mind, I also am aware that involving family in therapy will present challenges.
For one, cultural differences are the hardest thing to deal with for me especially when I am unsure of what is important to a particular culture and what is not. However, I can assure you that I will do everything I can so that a family and I can collaboratively work together to ensure the best patient outcome. Second, I also think it is hard to balance the family's involvement. On one extreme, I have experienced families who are almost overbearing and forget that I am the therapist. At the other extreme, I have experienced families who are not caring enough to be involved or engaged. At either extreme, I can see there is always room for improvement, and I am again willing to work with each so that I can see progress and success in my patient. For these issues, a family and I will work together to solve them. This will be done by communicating both in and out of therapy sessions. I want members of my patient's family to be able to experience what we do in therapy so that they can make suggestions as to what their top priority is. Even so, I think that it is just as important that the patient and I have that one-on-one time as well so that we can focus together and work toward his or her goals. Ultimately, I am the therapist, but the family is the expert on the patient. I only provide a piece to the treatment plan and outcome. Therefore, for me, family is the primary team member in all of the patient's occupational therapy sessions. |