Social occupational therapy

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the unfolding of a new research area - seen both as a field for theoretical reflection and as a praxis of intervention: the so called 'social occupational therapy', which has been defined to be the body of knowledge related to processes of caring and dealing with people lacking an adequate social support net. To that purpose, we address ourselves to the following tasks: the first is to understand which occupational therapy has emerged outside the main organizing framework 'health-disease'; the second one is to disclose the intertwining relations between occupational therapy and the society and culture within which it has been effectively developed. We consider that it is important to outline methodological principles that allow us to think out our practices, beyond the empirical moment; but we also believe that this has to be done without narrowing our reflections to the limits of reducing theories or pre-established models, a restriction that would make it impossible to fully understand the movements of the real world, life and history within their own context. In order to do so, we review the recent history of occupational therapy and investigate: the emergence of the 'social question', concerning reflection and practices in occupational therapy in São Paulo; the 'social' as a context of intervention of the occupational therapist; the processes of desinstitutionalisation; the importance of territorial actions in occupational therapy and, finally, the concepts that allow us to define the attention to social groups submitted to situations of rupture of their supporting social nets as a practice of occupational therapy.