Ever Becoming, Jennings Gallery, UCC

Revisiting the 1966 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture of Elizabeth Yerxa

The first year of the Occupational Therapy (OT) undergraduate course at UCC focuses on occupation and health. Students are encouraged to learn more about themselves as occupational beings and extend this understanding to their family, friends and the people with whom they will work in the future. First year is all about 'what people do' and the world in which they do it.

There is a long history of the use of art, craft and creative activities in Occupational Therapy, going back to the foundation of the profession with an understanding of the power of occupation and the harnessing of people's creative energy. It is argued that occupational therapists need to understand the centrality of creativity to health and well-being, just as they understand the centrality of occupation in daily life.