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How Do I Transition Into OT Psychiatric Mental Health?

Elizabeth Cara, Ph.D., OTR/L, MFC

April 4, 2016

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Question

Do you have recommendations to facilitate OT knowledge and skill development for mental health OT? I've been primarily in geriatric physical disability or physical disability. I would like to transition into psychiatric mental health focus.

Answer

I think that you are asking how could you get more knowledge and more skill for mental health OT and that you would like to focus on more psychiatric mental health - that you would like to have more than a psychosocial setting. If that is correct, what I would say is, keep doing what you are doing. There are a lot of seminars that you could take that will inform you about mental health. There are also two primary texts in mental health, and one of them happens to be written by myself and Anne MacRae. Some of the presenters here have written in it. The other one is written by Catana Brown and Ginny Stoffel. Both of these are major texts that you could start anywhere to read. I know ours is accessible, I think Jenny's and Catana’s too. I could say that their book is more of an overview in my opinion and ours would be a little more depth as far as treatment and intervention. I would try and look at the major texts in occupational therapy. I would also look at all the seminars, a lot of them on OccupationalTherapy.com and take as many as you can. I would go to all of the workshops that you can. There are so many of them at AOTA. I would choose the mental health ones for AOTA. I would go to your state conference and pick the psychiatric workshops. Locally, I would try and connect with mental health practitioners in your area. I find that there are so few of us and we are so excited about what we do. I think we are all pretty happy when someone talks about wanting to transition into psychiatric mental health. I think that we would be happy to mentor anyone who would like to join us.


elizabeth cara

Elizabeth Cara, Ph.D., OTR/L, MFC

Dr. Liz Cara currently has close to 45 years of experience working in all areas of mental health and with clients in every age group from infancy to older age. She has developed innovative programs in mental health and coordinates occupational therapy programs with community partners in addition to being on advisory boards for mental health organizations. She has taught a variety of courses including mental health and community practice, group intervention, fieldwork, activities, evidence-based practice, introduction to research, education in occupational therapy, advanced research and research thesis/project courses using both online and in-person technology. She has presented research, workshops, seminars in local, state, national and international conferences. She is the editor and author with Dr. Anne Macrae of the popular textbook, in its fourth edition, Psychosocial Occupational Therapy: An Evolving Practice. She has presented papers written from a psycho biographical perspective on the artist Georgia Okeeffe and the occupational therapist and primatologist, Dian Fossey.


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