Neuro-occupation: A self-organizing approach to conflate the brain, context, and occupation

Neuro-occupation was coined to conflate three distinctly different concepts: the brain, context, and occupation. Discussing neuro-occupation has been more of an academic exercise rather than cogently researched for everyday practice, perhaps due to the seemingly incongruity among the concepts.

This article traces the self-organization approach, an assumption of complex systems, to understand how the concepts can be conflated.

Deductive category application, a qualitative descriptive method for tracing theoretical assumptions, was drawn from the lived experiences of 11 Iranian participants with cerebrovascular accidents. Matrix construction aided collection of data for analysis.

The self-organization approach, underpinning neuro-occupation, was shown to be traceable, explaining how occupational participation may be influenced by the brain circular causality and perturbations provided by the context.

By understanding the dynamics of self-organization, occupational therapists can identify and create salient features that may motivate and enable clients to enhance occupational participation.