This quotation caught my eye today. It seemed to be calling to me from the bulletin board in the OT Dept...
"We cannot really help clients unless we are there, that is we feel, we encounter, we take time, we listen and we are ourselves... Personal authenticity as an Occupational Therapy practitioner means that the therapist allows himself to feel real emotion with the client... Philosophically we do not see man as a "thing" but as a being whose choices allow him to discover and determine his own Being. Our media, our emphasis upon the client's potentials, the necessity for him to act and the mutuality of our relationship with him provide a milieu in which his suffering can be translated into the resolve to become his true self."
-Elizabeth Yerxa (1967 Slagle Lecture)
I really couldn't say it any better myself. This brought a lot of clarity and comfort to my distress with Mt. Emotion. My supervisor also helped me to process and more deeply understand my feelings at this time. I don't want to speak too highly of her, because I know she reads this, but she really is a terrific OT and teacher. (She is also apparently a very talented artist... once painted a picture on a cake for the Queen of England!)
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