Carrie speaking.

I don't like having to scroll to the bottom to see who's writing. Actually I might not even write long enough for scrolling to be necessary. We'll see.

I have to admit, I feel a little disconnected from the network since I no longer am in "college" away from my women's spirituality group and the chapel services I loved so dearly. I'm in graduate school, which I find more informative in a specific sense, yet not nearly as fun as college. I'm studying occupational therapy.

"What is occupational therapy?" you might ask. We'll I can tell you a little about it.

Occupational therapy is using a person's occupations to help improve their independence and better their quality of life. Occupations are defined as the things that occupy a person's time. So the idea is that you can help a patient who has suffered an injury to regain their independence by engaging them in activities of meaning. Thus activity is therapeutic. We do different things in different settings. Sometimes OTs (occupational therapists) use crafts, cooking or just the things a person does in their daily routine to promote engagement in activity. We work in schools,
hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, private clinics, etc. We work with diagnoses ranging from schizophrenia to Cerebral Palsy to Multiple Sclerosis to spinal cord injury. And hopefully we help people to regain or gain as much independence as possible.

That's what I'm doing these days.

Carrie Simpson
Texas Woman's University
School of Occupational Therapy