How Philosophy Can Support Occupational Therapy’s Relevance in the 21st Century

Occupational therapy is a practice discipline. As such, occupational therapy practitioners value “doing” as their primary modus operandi, particularly given that their principal focus is the enhancement of occupational participation. For some time now, coupled with this value of doing has been the profession’s push for evidence-based practice, as occupational therapy practitioners strive for acceptance among other highly skilled health care professions (American Occupational Therapy, 2019). Given this focus of the profession on establishing itself as a science-tnformed profession by emphasizing practice that is supported by research evidence, why should philosophy matter? After all, in the day-to-day work of therapists, philosophy will not inform a practitioner on how to perform specific intervention procedures, nor whether those procedures are effective in producing desired results.