The Therapeutic Relationship

Before our class lecture on the therapeutic relationship, I had heard of it before. In my undergraduate major, therapeutic recreation, we discussed how important this was for your ability to be the most effective therapist possible. Some good examples I have seen in the past, have been at some of my undergraduate practicums - people who actively listened, collaborated with clients and their care team, and advocated for their clients needs demonstrated some of the best characteristics of a therapeutic relationship in my opinion. I personally worked very hard at one of my practicums to establish appropriate boundaries - the population was adolescent youth who were diagnosed with mental health and/or behavioral conditions. Because I was new to the field and very close in age to some of the residents, it was especially important to maintain professionalism. I did this by establishing boundaries from the beginning, for instance the facility required us to use our last names only, so I was Ms. Denton. It was important to me and sometimes even difficult to maintain the balance of them feeling comfortable enough with me to work on building our relationship, versus them feeling like I, their activity therapist, was a peer that they could treat with less respect, and cross boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. All of these elements are good things to consider when working on building a therapeutic relationship.

The History that People with Disabilities Have Experienced in the US

Both Dr. Keisling and the TED Talk discussed how previous generations associated disabilities with danger and were fearful of people with disabilities. Societies response to this way of thinking was to remove these people from society via institutionalization, which lasted for an extended period of time ranging from the 1900s to the 1980s. Throughout this time, and presently there have been advocates pushing for equal rights and autonomy for people with disabilities. While much progress has been made, there still is much more to build upon, improve and innovate. 

The lecture and the TED talk tied into several topics discussed during the era presentations. The lecture went much more in depth about Rosemary Kennedy and the way she was treated, which was very interesting and saddening to learn. As time went on John F Kennedy and his family eventually made strides in government to improve the rights for people with disabilities, but there was still much more improvement to come. Dr. Keisling also discussed the IDEA, which is something my group covered in our era project, as well. Furthermore, he discussed how children before the Education for All Handicapped Children could be, and were denied schooling. The woman in the TED Talk also discussed this and how she instead was offered a teacher who would come to her house for only two hours a week. 

Knowing more about the history that people with disabilities have experienced will impact my future as an OT in several ways. The first way it will is by keeping this history in mind, it will remind me to advocate for my clients and the services they deserve, in addition to the community of people with disabilities as a whole. Another way that keeping in mind this history will influence my future as an OT is to realize that there is always room for improvement and growth. I want to remind myself that just because I learned something at one point and time, doesn't mean it's going to be "correct" forever. Not only do I want to adapt and work to understand new ideas and concepts, I want to be able to contribute to them!