Exploring Mental Health Through Meaningful Occupation

OT 575 is a clinical course in which students explore how occupational therapy addresses mental health across the lifespan. Students begin by learning about occupational therapy’s history in mental health and its roots as a mental health profession, including its role in addressing mental health in response to the moral treatment movement. This foundation also introduces students to the Person-Environment-Occupation framework, recovery-oriented OT practice, trauma-informed care, and person-centered evaluation.

Building on this foundational knowledge, students explore mental health practice through the Person-Environment-Occupation framework and develop their understanding of mental health conditions and occupational therapy practice, including mood disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, trauma, and stressors. Students also examine environmental-level influences on mental health and their intersection with person factors and occupation, including how policies, laws, and systems affect the way mental healthcare is provided.

Students then explore how mental health affects occupations and what practitioners can do to develop interventions that address mental health through powerful and meaningful occupation. Students design interventions, apply them through case studies, and have opportunities to speak with practitioners working in mental health. This three-credit course accompanies students’ Level I Fieldwork Psychosocial Placement, where they observe practice in mental health settings.