Self-charting for patients in recreation therapy

Recently, the Ingleside Recreation Therapy department instituted a method of self-charting with thirty-nine adolescent inpatients in which both the patient and the therapist chart the patient's behavior in activities daily. The patient reads the therapist's chart note and may respond in any way he desires. The primary purpose of self-charting was to explore the possibility of establishing ongoing treatment goals with input from both the patient and the therapist, and of increasing communication and understanding between the two. Oftentimes, this did occur especially with distrustful or angry patients. Other results noted included the expression of a variety of feelings and the establishment of treatment goals by the patient--either on his own or in response to the therapist's written expectations.