Social Psychology: The Careers Of Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy

My results for my high school career quiz displayed many careers that I did not believe were for me, however there was one that I had never heard of that sparked my interest, Occupational Therapy. At the time, I had no idea what this career consisted of, but as time went by and I participated in various volunteering opportunities and shadowed several therapists, I began to realize that this career really intrigued me. Occupational therapists assist individuals across the entire lifespan in participating in daily living activities. They work with individuals with physical and developmental disabilities, those who have previously sustained an injury and need to regain their abilities, and the elderly population who may lose the abilities to perform certain tasks. This profession contains many important responsibilities that involve aspects of social psychology including evaluating the abilities of the patient, increasing independence of patients with

The social psychological concept of observational learning plays a huge role in therapy. Observational learning is the process of learning new skills or behaviors by observing those of others. During therapy, the therapist will demonstrate an exercise to the individual while they observe and then have the patient complete the exercise themselves. This process is considered observational learning. Another way therapists progress their patient’s independence is through operant conditioning, or following a skill with a positive reaction to let the patient know that they have completed the task correctly or put forth their best effort. This conditioning process causes the patient to feel more confident and want to complete that task again to achieve additional positive reactions from the therapist. These learning techniques taken from social psychology play a huge role in therapy