The Dr Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture 2017: Life as an occupational being

I am delighted to present the Dr Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture at the 41st conference of the newly ‘Royal’ College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT), here at the ICC in Birmingham. Indeed I am especially delighted to be delivering the lecture in Birmingham, as this feels like coming home – I was born and bought up nine miles down the road, in Solihull. I would like to thank my nominees and the RCOT council for giving me this opportunity to present the prestigious Dr Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture. No Casson Memorial Lecture should start without a reminder to its namesake, and to the importance of Elizabeth Casson’s work to the profession of occupational therapy in the United Kingdom. She opened the first school of occupational therapy in the United Kingdom (UK) at Dorset House, Clifton, Bristol in 1930. We continue to owe her a lot. While writing and researching this lecture I was struck by the opening sentence of Dr Casson’s paper, published in 1941, in which she details 40 cases treated at the clinic attached to the school: Rehabilitation needs serious attention at present (Casson 1941). I will come back to this important statement later on. But, before I start out, I am going to give you the take home message of my lecture first (e.g. my last slide first): Publish. Publish. Publish