How do I Express Myself Creatively?

[Lab 10- May 24: Enabling Change Through Expression]

My Painted Representation of My Inner Self

Definitely one of the most enjoyable PE Labs yet! I felt like a little kid again! (The last time I said that was when our family went to Universal Studios and Disney World)

In this lab, we engaged in creating portraits of our inner self, what we think others perceive us as, and express our emotions through painting, sculpture and music respectively. When was the last time I did any of this type of personal expression??

Photography Allows Me to Express Emotions 
that I Can't Find Words For.

When I think of what I do for artistic expression, I think back to my days in the high school band. Music was my first and foremost way of expressing myself. I was part of my high school band as a flute player for 4 straight years, was also in the violin ensemble for one year and learned to play the alto saxophone so I could play in the jazz band one year. Sadly my engagement with music as a musician stopped after I auditioned for the wind ensemble in university and didn't get in.

Having the Client's Best Interests at Heart

[Lab 9- May 17: CEC- Lived experience interviews]

In our lab today, we were given the choice of 3 assessments to administer to a volunteer client at the Clinical  Education Center: Role Checklist, Interest Checklist and the Engagement in Meaningful Activities Survey (EMAS). Immediately, my past failure in administering the Interest Checklist floated into the forefront of my mind and I did not want to do the Interest Checklist. However, I ended up choosing the Interest Checklist because I wanted to, for lack of better words, "overcome my fear" of administering it. Let me take this moment to reflect on my first experience with the Interest Checklist:

How Do I Self-Regulate?

[Lab 8- May 10: Enabling Occupation Through Self-Regulation]

This lab made me ask questions that I would't intuitively ask myself. What are my sensory preferences? What are my emotional regulation strategies? Definitely Not questions I've ever asked myself and at first glance, I genuinely think that I don't know how to answer!

Throughout the lab, I thought back to that stressful situation that I blogged about in my previous reflection on the lab about Cognitive Strategies (Appying the TIC TOC Technique), I realized that I know how I self-regulate better than I thought! There are...

Role Playing a Psychoeducation Group

[Lab 7- May 3: Enabling Occupation Through Learning]

Engaging in role-playing in this lab really made me think about the emotional experiences of the parents of those who had their first incident of psychosis and/or going through their own recovery process. I think that my role as the eldest child and older sister to three siblings helped me settle into the role of "Patrick's mother". After our session, I felt oddly relaxed. The students who played the OTs in our psychoeducation group did a great job of leading and facilitating the discussion. All of our group members actively participated and volunteer to share their experiences, so the group ran very smoothly.

Can You Hear Yourself Think?

[Lab 5- April 19: Enabling occupation through coping – Lived experience exercise]

I often have my earbuds in whenever I'm walking, waiting for the bus or commuting.  Even when I'm not out and about, my room is rarely a complete silence because I enjoy working with a bit of background music. But hearing music is different from hearing voices. I'm sure that we all have a voice or two inside our heads. That inner self-talk that guides us through everything from high-stress situations to making mental lists of what to do throughout the day. Without hearing myself think, I'm sure I'd feel a bit lonely when I'm without my music on my long walks home. But I would never describe my self dialogue as disturbing or interfering with my everyday activities. My experience in this Lived Experience of Psychosis lab, showed me how difficult it really is to live with hearing a constant cacophony of voices and odd noises.

Applying the TIC TOC Technique

[Lab 6- April 26: Enabling occupation through thoughts and feelings: Cognitive approaches]

One of the cognitive strategies I learned about in today's lab was the TIC TOC technique. Let's see how it can be used to dissect a recent emotionally stressful situation of mine:

Letting Things Slide, While Not Letting the Present Slip Away...

[Lab 4- April 12: Enabling occupation through thoughts and feelings: Mindfulness and relaxation]

I found our Mindfulness and Relaxation lab very helpful because I have never taken the time to seriously give relaxation techniques or mindfulness a try. My one and only exposure to Mindfulness exercises from a Positive Psychology class had been a memorable one. I have never thought of myself as being patient enough to sit still and focus on something as subtle as my own breath. But since then, I have not tried it again. It was great to experience how relaxation techniques (both passive and progressive!) can feel and compare it to mindfulness exercises.

At One with Nature.

Lab 3- April 5: Psychoemotional health through activity

One of the readings for this lab, Vitamin Green: How viewing, being and “doing” in nature affects our health and well-being (Moll, Gewurtz & Saltmarche, 2013), reminded me of an experience in nature during my placement.

My preceptor enjoyed engaging in outdoor recreational activities with her clients, both in one-on-one and group settings. In fact, I went on a hike at Cataraqui Creek with 2 clients on my first day of placement. After telling my preceptor that winter wasn't exactly my favourite season, she said (jokingly?) that one of her goals for my placement was to convert me into a winter loving girl! Not sure if I am, but I do have a renewed appreciation for nature and the outdoors.

The JDA: More than just your job description.

[Lab 2- March 22: Cognitive-behavioural job demands analysis]

Coming out of this lab, and the role playing that was involved in our simulation of conducting the Job Demands Analysis (JDA), made me realize the complexities of the many occupations that we engage in throughout our everyday lives. The JDA brings out the implicit elements and skills that a typical job description would fail to include, bringing attention to some psycho-emotional determinants of occupation compared to a functional assessment or activity analysis. If I ever decide to use this in my future practice, I have to keep in mind that I need to be more resourceful to attain the full occupational profile of my clients. It's unfortunate that the JDA doesn't ask about how the client's different life roles impact her job performance and experience in the workplace. The stresses of her other occupations definitely plays a role in how she demanding she feels her job is at this point in her life. We're not super humans who perform each of our occupations in isolation from each other. As much as we try our best to put one hat away when we put on another, our stack of hats is usually in within our peripheral vision as we carry out certain occupations because we never know when we'll have to switch roles!

Learning how to See with Empathy

[Lab 1- March 15: Empathy and Stigma]

The theme of our First PE Lab was "Empathy" and to learn about how it can be a tool for overcoming stigma we did an activity where we made Spectacles Of and For Ourselves. As our prof pulled out the pipe cleaners, I knew what was afoot --we were going to make pipe cleaner glasses for ourselves!! And what fun we had!! =)