Transformative occupational therapy: We are wired to be transformers

Transformative learning involves critical self-reflection as the motor for transforming values, beliefs, knowledge, and feelings and discovering the new meaning of daily life following a catastrophic injury or illness. Transformation has been conceptualized in various disciplines as a transcendent experience, rebirth process, and meaning-making process and within occupational therapy as a meaning perspective process.

This Muriel Driver lecture explores the concept of transformation and presents the newly developed Meaning Perspectives Transformation model, constructed from research conducted with several different rehabilitation client groups.

The model is characterized by three phases: trigger, changing, and outcomes. A client's critical self-reflection acts as a catalyst for moving between the phases and is represented in the model as a moment of readiness for change leading to the development of alternative ways of performing.

The Meaning Perspectives Transformation model provides a tool for being an effective occupational therapist, encouraging therapists to listen closely to their clients to identify their weakening and emerging meaning perspectives and enable their occupational evolution and transformation.