Perspective on potencies. Recovery by enhancing executive functions.

In mental healthcare a transition is seen from treatment of symptoms to recovery and living a meaningful life in the community. Four interdependent components of recovery can be distinguished: clinical, functional, societal... [ view full abstract ]

In mental healthcare a transition is seen from treatment of symptoms to recovery and living a meaningful life in the community. Four interdependent components of recovery can be distinguished: clinical, functional, societal and personal. Functional recovery gets too little attention in contemporary mental health care. Functional recovery is about the "underlying" processes and capacities needed for social functioning and participation. When these processes are insufficient developed and/or damaged these deficits can hinder fulfilling occupational roles and maintaining meaningful relationships.
An interdisciplinary group of professionals and mental health service users collaborates to design a method detecting difficulties of executive functioning in a real life environment and to investigate the available capacities as base for improvement.
Occupational therapists are since long familiar with assessment and training of executive functioning in real life contexts. The evidence base of this training in mental health is scarce, as much research is focused on symptom reduction or participation. Unfortunately OT assessments and interventions are not always known by other professionals. The knowledge and skills of OT would therefore make a valuable addition to development of the proposed method. We are convinced that OT and the service users they work with will benefit from the use of this method.

This interactive workshop aims for a mutual beneficial session in sharing knowledge.

The maximum number of participants is 25.

This workshop is suitable for occupational therapists, researchers and educators familiar with persons with mental illness and/ or persons with cognitive and /or neurological illnesses within real life contexts.