Occupational therapy in mental health: It is time to recognise that it has come of age

Abstract

First paragraph: Recent articles in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy highlight the continuing core skills debate and appear to search for the value of occupational therapy, specifically within the mental health setting (Craik et a11998, Clarke 1999). The quest for the uniqueness of occupational therapy at times appears reminiscent of an adolescent identity crisis, in which individuals grapple for a sense of meaning and, in doing so, are in danger of adopting a narrow construct of identity which defines their being. If a profession adopts such an attitude, there is a danger that it could lead to a prescriptive format of what is and what is not definitive of practice. The role of occupational therapists will be better defined when the profession desists from its attempts to identify skills and focuses its efforts on assessing outcomes of intervention.