Elevate Your OT Practice

How is your OT practice?
Some OTs are fortunate. They find a setting or population of people they enjoy working with right away. For a majority of OTs, even though we may have an idea of areas of interest when coming out of school, it can take a few employment positions before having clarity on what we enjoy. 

Frequently I am asked, “How did you get into this area of OT?” By this area, they usually mean what has come to be known as integrative health (formerly known as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)). The short answer is that prevention and wellness have always made sense to me. Wouldn’t we, as OT practitioners, want to help people stay well and prevent disease? I have also chronicled my career here.

Early Career Burnout
It is not uncommon for people who go into the service and giving professions to experience forms of burnout. This happened to me early in my career. There are many reasons this happened. I could blame it on a health care system that squeezes productivity out of the workers to the detriment of their well-being. Although, that would be part of the issue. The way I was proving OT was not fully in alignment with my values and how I wanted to deliver health care. (This is sometimes now referred to as moral injury or moral distress.)

I wanted to help people from the most holistic perspective possible. This is why I initially became an OT––because of its holistic scope of practice. I wanted to help people before they had illnesses or diseases. I embarked on training in various integrative health approaches, including energy healing, massage therapy, meditation, aromatherapy, and intuitive development. A whole world opened up to me. 

Research has since caught up to anecdotal evidence of many integrative health approaches, such as yoga, meditation, energy healing, and more. 

Stress as a Fulcrum for Health
It became clear to me that many holistic or integrative health approaches, not only simultaneously address the mind-body-spirit, they also address stress levels. 

Stress management has been an area of expertise in the occupational therapy profession since its inception during World War I. The profession was born out of helping survivors of war ‘occupy’ their time with activities in an effort to rebuild their broken minds and bodies.  

Restoring Calm and Peace
All of the integrative health approaches, in one way or another, help return the body to homeostasis. They help lower stress levels, anxiety, and pain. Just like the beginning of the profession, integrative health can help with restoring and optimizing wellness.

Many of these approaches have benefits to help the mind return to a sense of calm and peace. They can help strengthen the body by lowering tension while assisting with toning. They can help regulate all of the systems of the mind-body-spirit.

Health, Wellness, and Prevention 
Integrative health can support with the recovery from illness, disease, and injury or mitigate the effects and empower a person toward well-being. These approaches can support a person to stay well and prevent disease. 

Significant Benefits for Client and OT Practitioner
Becoming trained through continuing education in integrative health has helped me recover from my early career burnout. I feel much more satisfied with how I can help people by having these additional tools in my toolkit. I have seen this with countless OTs who have taken my classes. Their personal and professional job satisfaction increases. They get better outcomes with their clients. 

Ethically, it seems to me that all OTs ought to be trained in these approaches, or at least understand the efficacy-based research to support health and wellness. They can be used across the lifespan in all health care settings. 

Continuing Education
If you would like to elevate your practice, consider becoming trained in approaches that you feel would benefit you and your clients the most. Visit the “Classes” tab at HolisticOT.org. Check out my Emmy Vadnais YouTube channel or get a copy of my Intuitive Development book.