Doing occupational therapy: dimensions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

OBJECTIVES A phenomenological study was conducted to gain understanding of the nature of the lived experience of doing occupational therapy. METHOD One hundred and forty-eight occupational therapists nationwide were asked to describe especially satisfying and dissatisfying experiences of practice. The resulting narrative data were analyzed with dimensional analysis techniques. RESULTS With the metaphor of therapy as story, three overarching dimensions of practice were derived from the narrative data: Change, Community, and Craft. The dimension of Change is strongly related to the ending or outcome of the story, Community encompasses the harmony or disharmony of the interrelationships in the shared story, and Craft includes both the skills of therapy and the broader core experience of doing therapy. CONCLUSION These findings are complementary to the three-track mind discussed in the clinical reasoning study and contribute further to our understanding of the experience of doing occupational therapy.