The Meaning of Everyday Occupation

Betty Risteen Hasselkus, PhD, OTR, FAOTA is an Emeritus Professor of Kinesiology/Occupational Therapy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she served as program director for 10 years. Prior to her faculty appointment, she earned a bachelor of science degree in occupational therapy, a master of science degree in physical education, and a doctor of philosophy degree at the University of Wisconsin. The hospital where she did much of her training and where she held her first position in occupational therapy is also the building where she was born, where her children were born, and where, ultimately, the academic program of occupational therapy was located during her faculty years. During her more than 40 years of active participation in the profession of occupational therapy, Dr. Hasselkus has focused her research, teaching, and practice on the everyday occupational experience of people in the community, with a special emphasis on family caregiving for older family members, physician-family caregiver relationships, meanings of everyday occupation to dementia daycare staff, and the meaning of doing occupational therapy. She was elected to the American Occupational Therapy Association Roster of Fellows in 1986 and to the American Occupational Therapy Foundation Academy of Research in 1999. Dr. Hasselkus was the invited Wilma West Lecturer at the University of Southern California in 2003, presenting a lecture entitled, "The Voice of Everyday Occupation." In 2005, she was awarded the AOTA Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lectureship Award-the Association's highest award for scholarship-and subsequently gave the award lecture in 2006, "The World of Everyday Occupation: Real People, Real Lives." Dr. Hasselkus was editor of The American Journal of Occupational Therapy from 1998 to 2003. Her international reputation as a scholar has taken her to Australia, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Wales, and Northern Ireland, where she has provided lectures and workshops on qualitative research methods, critical analysis, writing, and qualitative research opportunities in everyday occupation. Her scholarly career includes more than 90 publications in journals and texts.

 

About the AuthorAcknowledgmentsIntroduction  Chapter 1    Meaning: An Essential for Life                  Personal and Social Meanings                  Meaning and Performance in Life                  Aspects of Seeing                  How Do We “Know” Meaning?                  The Open Door Policy Chapter 2    Meaning in Everyday Occupation                  Happiness Is                   Occupation and Being                  Occupation and Becoming                  Occupation and Belonging Chapter 3    Space and Place: Sources of Meaning in Occupation                  Space and Place in Our Lives                  Health and Well-Being Within Space and Place                   Space and Therapy                  From Space to Place in Therapy                  Placelessness                  A Place to Call Home                  Special Places                  A Geography of Health Chapter 4    Culture and Occupation: The Experience of Similarity                   and Difference                  Culture as Similarity and Difference                  Cultivating the Similar in Our Lives                  Cultivating Difference in Our Lives                  Structuring the Similarities: Routines, Habits, and Rituals                  Disability as Difference Chapter 5    Occupation as a Source of Well-Being and Development                  The Essence of Well-Being                  Occupation and Human Development                  Occupation to the End  Chapter 6    Occupation as Meaningful Connection                  Relation and the Professional                  Relation and Well-Being                  Occupational Forms of Relation                  Occupational Therapy and Connectedness Chapter 7    Disability and Occupation                  The Faces of Disability                  Occupation as Disability Experience                  Disability as Occupational Experience                  Being the Bridge                  Chapter 8    Occupation as a Source of Spirituality                  This Thing Called Spirituality                  Spiritual “Health”                  Spirituality and Occupation: Compatible Partners?                  Spirituality and Everyday Occupation                  Spirituality and Occupational Therapy                  The Space Within Chapter 9    Creativity in Occupation as a Source of Meaning                  Creativity From Without and Within                  Arising From Chaos                  Creativity and Health                  To the Dancing Star Chapter 10 Occupation Speaks: Final Thoughts                  The Therapist and the Splint Index