Meaningful and Rewarding Occupations as Means and End

A Symbiosis between Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy

Abstract

Human occupation is the reason for the existence of both occupational Therapy and Occupational Sci- ence. However, until recently, no serious effort was made to define human occupation precisely, differentiate between types of occupations as experienced phenomena, and identify characteristics that make occupations healing. This paper will: 1)discuss the proposition that meaningful occupations enhance health and well-being; 2)argue that not all meaningful occupations are the same, and psychologically rewarding occupations are different from other types of meaningful occupations; 3)propose that the pursuit of meaningful and psychologically rewarding occupations has an evolutionary basis for the human species; 4)suggest that we need both meaningful and psychologically rewarding occupations to stay healthy; 5)introduce a protocol for the use of meaningful and psychologically rewarding occupations as media in occupational therapy interventions; 6)suggest future directions in occupational science for use of tools borrowed from the special theory of relativity in physics to investigate with increased precision occupational participation; and 7)discuss how knowledge based on this inquiry may be used to improve occupational therapy practice.