Once a Therapist, Always a Therapist": The Early Career of Mary Black, Occupational Therapist (original) (raw)
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Once a Therapist, Always a Therapist": 1 The Early Career of Mary Black, Occupational Therapist
Mary Black was an internationally-known weaver and a key figure in Nova Scotia's craft renaissance during the 1940s and 1950s. The early years of her worklife, however, remain unexplored, despite her place as a pioneering occupational therapist in Nova Scotia and in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. RESUME Mary Black est une tisseuse de renommee intemationale et une personne cle de la renaissance de l'artisanat en Nouvelle-Ecosse durant les annees 40 et les annees 50. Les premieres annees de sa carriere, demeurent encore inexplorees, malgre sa place en tant qu'ergotherapeute pionniere en Nouvelle-Ecosse et aux Etats-Unis durant les annees 20 et les annees 30.
The Object of Therapy: Mary E. Black and the Progressive Possibilities of Weaving
This article will examine the career of weaver and occupational therapist Mary E. Black (1885–1988) by using her life as a lens through which to explore the intersection of arts and crafts revivalism with occupational therapy in early twentieth-century northeastern North America. Born in Massachusetts, Black grew up in and was educated in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. She trained as ward’s aide in Montreal in 1919 and worked in a string of hospitals and sanitariums throughout the United States and Nova Scotia. Indeed, Black understood her work as an occupational therapist and what she described as “the therapeutics of weaving” to be intertwined. Like many arts and crafts revivalists of her period, Black saw the teaching of skilled craftmaking as a means to generate self-sufficiency, since it provided a way for displaced and injured people to make salable goods in the face of industrialization, war, and inadequate medical care. In Black’s case, the utopian social mission of the new professional field of occupational therapy provided just the institutional means to disseminate the remunerative qualities of craftwork on a broad scale.
Opening Feminist Histories of Occupational Therapy
American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 1992
This paper frames the histolY of occupational therapy in feminist terms. It focuses on gender segregation in occupationaL therapy, the influence of class and race in shaping opportunities for occupationaL tberapists, and the place offeminism in the goaLs and achievements of the occupational therapy profession. Such issues have been addressed by feminist scbo/an in bistories of women in medicine, nursing, and other heLping profeSSions. Tbese sources beLp pLace tbe achievements of occupational tberapy within the context of women '05 historic entry and advancement in the American work force.
Evolution of Occupational Therapy Practice: Life History of Lela Llorens, Ph.D., OTR/Ret, FAOTA
2019
Objective: The objective of the overall study was to gain insight into Dr. Lela Llorens's life experiences and leadership throughout her time of work in the profession of occupational therapy. Method: This was a qualitative study done using a life history approach. The participant was selected from a list compiled through purposive sampling by the project directors. Data was gathered through a two-hour, semi-structured interview with Dr. Llorens via Zoom, and through her curriculum vitae. The two-hour interview was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Member checking was not used for the triangulation of the data. The data collapsed into three categories with three to four themes in each. Results: Data analysis was conducted, and the information was first coded, then placed into categories, themes, and an assertion. The categories that emerged were: Overcoming Challenges, Personal Factors, and Occupational Therapy. The themes that emerged through data analysis were: a strong belief in a positive mindset to help overcome any challenges, the value of serving others is apparent in all aspects of life, and occupational therapy being more than just a career, but a way of life. Conclusion: Dr. Llorens served as a pioneer for the occupational therapy profession. She was able to maintain success and optimism during a time that was discriminatory for her. Her family and desire to serve others was instrumental in her professional and personal life as they gave her actions meaning.
Culture Unbound, 2014
This article will examine the development of a state-sponsored therapeutic craft regime in Nova Scotia in the early to mid-twentieth century. Built on the notion that postwar residents needed " work therapy – not a vacation, but a hardening process " (Black n.d. a: 3) – therapeutic craft emerged in Nova Scotia through a complex combination of the individualization of work habits, the desire to construct an antimodern regional identity around handwork, and the notion that both infirm patients and the province as a whole could be healed from economic stagnation through craft. Key to the success of Nova Scotia's therapeutic craft regime was occupational therapist Mary E. Black's career as director of the provincial government's Handicrafts and Home Industries Division from 1943 to 1955. Black's healthcare training led her to seek out therapeutic possibilities in everyday work activities, not to mention a therapeutic solution to what she called " the attitude of most Nova Scotians…[:] defeatism " (Black 1949: 46). Her ability to turn seemingly disparate things – such as Scandinavian design, the ordered work of occupational rehabilitation, and a phenomenological focus on what she called " in-dividualistic existence " (Black n.d. b: 2) – into a unified therapeutic solution demonstrates that the contemporary rise of therapeutic culture under the increased individualism of the neoliberal era has an established historical root in the postwar period that remains important to understand.
Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergothérapie, 2007
This historical study focused on understanding the influence of mental health concepts and practices on the profession of occupational therapy in Canada during the first part of the 20th century. The authors examined early editions of the Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy (CJOT) and other primary works from 1925-1950 to identify key events and themes. Analysis of these key historical documents revealed four themes: (1) Idle hands, emotional mischief, social unrest; (2) The grand vision; (3) Practical reality: Disparity between theory and practice; and (4) Understanding occupation: Approaches and methods to promote mental health. A timeline of key events related to occupational therapy practice and mental health also emerged. Reflecting on the history of a profession can assist its members to understand current practices and future possibilities.
Evolution of Occupational Therapy Practice: Life History of John White Jr. PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA
2019
Objective: The purpose of the study is to provide current and future generations of occupational therapists a view of the history and how occupational therapy practice has evolved from its inception to current practice through the life history stories of occupational therapists who have held leadership roles at the national level and beyond. It is anticipated that the life history process will be a powerful way to gather this information. Method: The participant was assigned to the project directors through purposive sampling. Two, 60-minute, semi-structured interviews, guided by the Kawa model, were conducted with Dr. White through a video chat application at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and then broken into codes, categories, themes, and a final assertion. Results: The predominant categories that represented the major elements of his career were Leadership and Involvement, Education and Work Experie...
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 2011
Studies regarding the medicalization process generally focus on the way various physical and psychological conditions have been identified as "health" problems, within specific historical contexts. Less well known is how the therapeutic roles of certain "health" professionals were also a result of the confluence of particular historical events. By comparing the professional trajectories of Quebec's occupational therapists and hospital social workers from 1940 to 1985, this article demonstrates how professionals originally outside of the world of health care created new therapeutic roles for themselves within the constantly expanding institutional health care system.
Pioneering occupational therapy and occupational science: Ideas and practitioners before 1917
Journal of Occupational Science, 2017
The concept of using occupation with patients or clients was well established by the time the founders of the American professional organization met in 1917, but the origins that focus on using occupation as a change agent for individual patient benefit remain unclear. Therefore the questions for this paper are: (1) When did occupation begin to be used as a change agent for individual benefit? (2) Who were the people that first advanced the notion of occupation as a potential positive change agent? and (3) What were their ideas about how occupation could be applied? The answers were found by searching the journal literature using multiple terms, about 25, related to the concept of occupation since the term "occupational therapy" did not appear in print until 1915. Ninety-five articles were located published in North American between 1897 and 1916. Six early practice models were identified by terms used in the authors' publications: institutional occupation, diversional occupation, work cure, habit training, specialized workshops and invalid occupation. The authors of the articles were organized into four professional groups: physicians, other professionals (psychologists, nurses, and artists), occupation workers, and occupational therapy personnel. Selected individuals from each group were reviewed along with a sample of their work. The earliest identified published example among the authors was the occupation of gardening, initiated in 1896 but not published until 1917. The earliest identified article describing the value of occupation was published in 1897.
Historical Studies in Education / Revue d'histoire de l'éducation
Following the creation of Ontario’s Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) in 1965, an interested group of health care providers and educators in Hamilton began to advocate for the creation of a program in occupational therapy at Mohawk College. Historically, occupational therapy education in Canada took place within universities, so a college-based program was viewed as a significant development by the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT) and its provincial branches. The idea of the Mohawk program was developed concurrently with the work of Ontario’s Healing Arts Committee, which put forward more than two hundred recommendations that would reshape the education of health care workers. These two elements, the development of an occupational therapy program within a CAAT and a major review of education for health care workers, were viewed with concern by the CAOT. This paper analyzes the history of this educational development and the response of the profess...