Complementary Functions of Occupation and Narrative

Researchers have found narratives useful in the study of occupation and occupational science. The imperative to understand and apply narrative approaches to occupational science research and occupational therapy practice cannot be overestimated for its utility in ensuring effective, efficient client-centered and occupation-based research, services, and outcomes. This proposal intends to spark discussion on the relationship of narrative and occupation. The relationship of narrative and occupation is proposed as one aspect of the significance of narrative to occupational science and occupational therapy. Understanding the relationships of occupation and narrative can help researchers and practitioners understand a person\u27s occupations at a deeper level and help individuals enhance their occupational performance. The example of a brief narrative will illustrate the functions of narrative and why people find stories a particularly cogent way to apprehend and reveal experience. A brief presentation will explore several examples of the complementary relationship of occupation and narrative that were discovered while studying occupational science theory through memoirs of adults with acquired physical disability. Proposed complementary relationships include elements, temporal organizing qualities, adaptation, identity, occupational life story, and the reconciliation of the ordinary and extraordinary. Participants will test the proposed relationships using a hypothetical occupational routine. Participants are invited to explore the proposal that occupation and narrative are universal forms in which occupation is the doing of life and narrative is the temporal expression of what people do. We will conclude by considering if all narratives are about occupation. The proposed complementary functions of narrative and occupation may contribute to the reasons that occupational scientists use narrative for research, that occupational therapists rely on individual’s narrative either explicitly or implicitly, and why narrative reasoning is considered the central mode of the occupational therapy reasoning process