Writing the ordinary : auto-ethnographic tales of an occupational therapist

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.This thesis is an auto-ethnographic study of my life as an occupational therapist. Autoethnographic writing animates the culture of occupational therapy by fictionalising moments of practice in one woman's life that can contribute to the collective biography of the profession in Australia. The purpose of this auto-ethnography is to re-inscribe the everyday world of practice into public accounts, at a time when occupational therapy as a profession is becoming a scholarly discipline. Every profession has rich oral and practice traditions that are located in the everyday. Occupational therapists have a 'double dose' because the work we do explicitly concerns the everyday activities of others. Participation in all the ordinary things that people need and want to do every day is part of the 'immense remainder' (de Certeau, 1984, p. 61) of human experience that 'does not speak' (Hasselkus, 2006). This autoethnographic inquiry into my professional life restores something of the intimacy, viscerality and particularity of practice, which, I argue, has been left behind in the search for scholarly and professional legitimacy for occupational therapy. The thesis consists of a portfolio of fictive tales together with layers of historical and theoretical framing. The tales are in direct dialogue with a selection of articles from my own published work concerned with the practices of a youth-specific occupational therapy project undertaken in the 1980s. A critical commentary connects the new writing with the old, related to the problematic of everyday life and to constructions of professionalism in the bigger picture of occupational therapy. This portfolio of tales of sexuality, food and death dramatises 'paradigmatic scenes' from a remembered world of occupational therapy, recalling moments of practice with young people living and dying at Camperdown Children's Hospital. These fictional tales are twice-told, first, by an Anglo-Australian occupational therapist in her 30s and then by girls of Pacific Islands, Aboriginal and Turkish heritage. The particular approach of crafting twice-told tales in dialogue with selected publications is what makes this auto-ethnographic project distinctive. These fictive engagements with practice may 'recover' subjugated knowledges from lost and repressed places. Such 'writing the ordinary' may have ethical implications for (re)presenting interactions between all the actors involved in moments of practice

Silent, invisible and under-supported? : An autoethnographic journey through the valley of the shadow and youth mental health in Australia

This autoethnographic account of personal loss and consequent meaning-making aims to contribute to a unique understanding of young Australians facing both times of uncertainty and mental illness. As a qualitative study, it explores the lived experience of the researcher whose working life was spent in youth studies. This tacit knowledge seemed to fail as she tried to get help for her mentally ill son who died unexpectedly of a drug overdose. Using critical autoethnography and a highly reflexive approach, the researcher deploys three reflexive selves – mother-self, youth studies self, and autoethnographer/researcher-self – in order to answer the research question, How might a mother’s autoethnographic account of her son “falling through the cracks” help us to better understand and support Australian youth experiencing mental illness? The study contributes insights from a community perspective about the disjunction between policy promises and service delivery for young people with mental illness in Australia. The gap this thesis fills is methodological by nature, since the autoethnographic voice of a parent is rare in the multidisciplinary contexts of this research. Using youth studies as its theoretical framework, the literature review explores broad themes in youth studies as well as mental health, along with specific themes addressed throughout the thesis such as the experience of exclusion from decision-making, the issues of youth agency and mental illness, shame and stigma, suicidality and psychiatric treatment for mentally ill youth. The autoethnography itself is presented as two distinct chapters, the first tracing a narrative arc through migration, schooling, bullying, giftedness, existential angst, suicidality and mental illness, and the second continuing beyond the death of the researcher’s son, exploring the “broken dialogue” in mental health policy and service settings, laying bare a disjunction between the lay and professional views of mental illness. This thesis will be of interest and relevance for professionals who work with gifted youth as well as parents, teachers, policy-makers and others concerned with the mental health of Australian youth

Towards an auto-ethnography of an occupational therapist's published body of work

My inquiry into writing concerns the place of arts-based inquiry in the occupational therapy profession and ways in which auto-ethnography can potentially contribute to a critical reading of an occupational therapist s published body of work. I am using writing as a method of inquiry, re-reading my publications written over two decades as occupational therapist at a metropolitan children s hospital and, more recently, a regional university. My new writing intends to be fictive and poetic, problematising those institutional ways of knowing (and writing) that I have taken for granted. The autobiographical story boards are entitled Always a writer , Being a therapist and Becoming academic . The new corpus will be a collection of untold stories from an auto-ethnographic inquiry into my published body of work. My hope is that these untold stories may recover a counter-historical imagination for occupational therapy, opening space for more reflexive, ethical practice

Le Moment De La Lune'. An Auto-Ethnographic Tale Of Practice About Menarche In A Children'S Hospital

Introduction: Auto-ethnographic accounts can highlight unsaid moments of professional practice. In this case, my auto-ethnographic tale eLe moment de la lune f re-inscribes subjugated knowledge about menstruation and occupational therapy practice in the era before adolescent wards. Methods: This fictional tale is written in direct dialogue with an article that was published in this journal at a particular point in my own career as an occupational therapist. In the tale I am ewriting in f what was not written about in my article and in occupational therapy generally. This ewriting-in f . re-inscribing is the research method. Findings: My previous article eNormal spaces f published in this journal in 1985, was organised around principles and generalities of youth-specific practice. The original article had little locating the personal or evoking the body and a heavy reliance on the literature. Issues of gender and culture were largely absent, or, perhaps, ewritten out f. The corresponding tale of embodied sexuality, eLe moment de la lune f, articulates something of local complex practice and the particularity of individual therapeutic work to do with menstruation in self-care