Great Initial Response to Call to Adopt RT Term

I am both surprised and pleased by the response thus far to the post "Time for Profession to Adopt RT Term!" In the first 48 hours following the post I received five email messages which were all in favor of adopting the term recreation therapy. And, by the way, all five messages were from "big names" in our profession. You may have also seen the well prepared comment by Sharon n ctrs (wonder who that is!) in which she stressed the need to distinguish ourselves from special recreation.

I want to share a particularly interesting email message that I received from Jerry Kelley. Jerry is now retired but was a leading national figure in our profession in the 1970s. Jerry wrote:

I just had a chance to read the RT Blog regarding a name change for Therapeutic Recreation and it's like "deja vu all over again." Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of us urged the profession to make clear its identity, mission and purpose by adopting the name Recreation Therapy, a name that puts the emphasis on the treatment process rather than the recreation experience. ATRA should have taken this step when it was formed years later. Perhaps this generation of leaders in the field will have the courage to adopt a name that better relects the profession. Jerry Kelley, Ph.D., 1973 NTRS President