Why could be difficult understand what is occupational therapy? A theoretical proposal from four perspectives.

Abstract

This article is the result of an essay developed by four occupational therapists that currently perform as academic at two Chilean universities. During a round table discussion, at the Third Chilean Meeting of Student Occupational Therapy in 2014, and from their own theoretical developments, they meet to take the challenge of explaining why it is so difficult to define what occupational therapy is. Thus, the discussion begins with the pragmatists women’s theorist of the early twentieth century and her contributions to understand the processes of health and disease from a holistic perspective as opposed to the dichotomous and reductionist point of view installed by neopositivism science. It continues with Heidegger’s ontological proposal of ‘Being and Time’ for explanation of occupation and occupational therapy, assuming an ontological gap in the history of the profession. Then, it presents the contributions from the Actor-Network Theory and how helps to answer the initial question, assuming that the difficulty would be the inability to translate and enroll themselves theoretical developments to other actors. Finally a proposal of epistemological positioning initially developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, which derives to the paradigm of complexity, defined by Edgar Morin, is handed in.