Enhancing the Profession’s Image
OT Practice, Apr 5, 2010 by Peloquin, Suzanne M
Isn’t the image of occupational therapy, in Figure 1, arresting? I found it by engaging the clip-art feature within Microsoft’s PowerPoint program and entering occupational therapy. If one enters physical therapy, 24 images emerge, featuring therapists in realistic or cartoon form, walking patients at parallel bars, massaging backs, making adjustments to necks and limbs, or exercising in pools. I suppose I should have been glad that occupational therapy was represented at all; speech, recreational, and respiratory therapy are not. Prior to December 15, 2009, the image in Figure 1 was the only clip art of occupational therapy in the collection. This article is, in part, the story of how 45 more images were added to the collection. But the story begins with a deeper consideration of what this clip art means.
It’s interesting to consider the depiction in Figure 1 in the same light as two other images of occupational therapy, those of our ethos and our Centennial Vision.1 Although these two images are crafted of words rather than shapes and colors, they create a context within which to understand marketing brands and visual images. Let’s think about both.
Our ethos offers insight into the profession’s character and genius. Five guiding beliefs structure our ethos; they have woven through our literature since the profession’s founding. Each belief evokes a corollary image of who we are and what we do, giving us five key features of our identity. Our ethos is this:
Time place and circumstance open paths to occupation: We are pathfinders
Occupation fosters dignity, competence, and health: We enable occupation that heals
Occupational therapy is a personal engagement: We co-create daily lives
Caring and helping are vital to the work: We reach for hearts as well as hands
Effective artistry is both art and science: We are artists and scientists at once2
Our Vision, on the other hand, prompts us to imagine ourselves in the future. Differing in nature from a professional ethos, a successful Vision turns the collective gaze of practitioners from what has not yet been realized to what could be. Visions are critical images designed to prompt action. When ascribing to any individual the characteristic of being visionary, one compliments that person’s imagination and foresight. A profession that aims to thrive must be visionary. Our Centennial Vision is this:
We envision that occupational therapy is a powerful, widely recognized, science-driven, and evidence-based profession with a globally connected and diverse workforce meeting society’s occupational needs.1
The profession needs its vision and its ethos in equal measure. When any leader possesses vision alongside what most call character, others are inspired to follow. That leader has foresight as well as insight. Parallel traits are required in any profession. The profession’s ethos, or character, thus stands in a complementary relationship to the Centennial Vision. The term perspective comes to mind. In the world of art, the depth and accuracy that emerge when a person sees the world in perspective come from binocular vision-looking with both eyes. When considered together, the vision and ethos yield a rich perspective on occupational therapy.
The point of considering the ethos and vision was to provide a context for judging the veracity with which Microsoft’s image represents who we are and what we do. Do you see traces of either the ethos or the Vision in this clip art? What do you see? I first saw green tentacles entering blood-red wounds. I immediately recalled a film that featured cabbage-like pods that developed into human bodies, replacing the original possessors of those bodies with beings stripped of feeling and free will. The invasion of these body snatchers was scary science fiction. Only when a colleague said, “Well, at least electrical stimulation is represented” did I make a therapeutic link
respiratory therapist program
