My First Post

I must admit some anxiety about writing this first post. Will it be clear? Will anyone read it or really care? Oh, well, here goes. Just yesterday I saw that the new Annual in Therapeutic Recreation (Vol. 14, 2005) was up on the ATRA web site. In it there appears an article that I wrote, "The Changing Contextualization of RT: A 40 Year Perspective." In the article I talk about how the theoritical perspectives for the practice of RT have changed over the years. When I began as a young RT, in 1963 at Madison State Hospital, there truly was no theory to guide us. We were simply hospital recreators. Of course, we wanted our patients to feel good about themselves -- but we didn't really follow a theoretical perspective. It wasn't until the mid-1960s at Evansville State Hospital that I experienced practice as based on theory. At Evansville, the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and others was evident as a basis for practice. The Annual article traces the influences of psychoanalytic theory and other approaches that lead us toward embracing the humanistic approach that has played such a large role in our practice. I close the article by suggesting that today we find that Positive Psychology has joined the humanistic approach in the hearts and minds of RTs. I suggested that Positive Psychology is likely to enjoy a greater place in RT as practitioners become more familiar with it and that this perspective will lead RTs toward increased concern for health promotion.

I'll be interested to know of anyone has read the article in the Annual and has any reaction to it. I look forward to my initial experience with blogging. Hopefully, RTs will find the RT Blog interesting.