Annotated bibliography of chaos for occupational therapy

Given the level of complexity at which the practice of occupational therapy operates, chaos may be the key to fresh insight into the nature of occupation. This article, through an innovative scholarly format-the annotation-presents essential concepts of chaos theory which are relevant for occupational therapy. A rationale for the importance of chaos theory and complexity science is presented and the limited extent to which chaos theory has been addressed in the occupational therapy literature is identified. Occupational therapy links to chaos and complexity are delineated and explained based upon a review of fourteen articles appearing in peer reviewed journals over a five year period (1993-1998), which are presented in three categories: (a) interdisciplinary applications, (b) mental health and creativity applications, and (c) educational and research applications. Conclusions about the relevance of chaos theory to occupational therapy are presented in the last section of the paper.