Iðjuþjálfinn - 2020, Page 42

42Iðjuþjálfinn 1/2020
Professor Anne G. Fisher is an internationally renowned occupa-
tional therapist, president and founder of the Center for Innovative
OT Solutions (CIOTS) and a widely published author of 40 books or
book chapters and 100 articles in refereed professional journals. In
2017 the American Occupational Therapy Association honored her
as one of the hundred most influential people on the centennial of
occupational therapy (Center for Innovative OT Solutions n.d) and
her work is part of the occupational therapy curriculum at the Uni-
versity of Akureyri. She is therefore well known among occupation-
al therapists in Iceland and in March of 2020 the Educational and
Promotional Committee of the Icelandic Occupational Therapy As-
sociation in conjunction with Continuing Education of the Universi-
ty of Iceland invited her to host a course called “Powerful Practice:
Planning and Implementing Authentic Occupational Therapy Ser-
vices”. Two of the participants used the opportunity and inter-
viewed her for Iðjuþjálfinn.
Our first question was about her background, interests and of
course why does she like Iceland?
I grew up in Berkley, California, and we did a lot of sailing on the
San Francisco bay, so I love the water and being near the water.
That’s one thing I really like about Iceland, there is water every-
where, in land and around. I love the outdoors, not only water but
also mountains. I love hiking, enjoy reading and movies, I like cook-
ing and good wine. I have been to Iceland quite often over the years
and I have very good Icelandic friends that I like to meet up with. I
have travelled quite a bit in Iceland over the years with my Icelan-
dic friends and I enjoy coming here.
Dr. Anne G. Fisher is University Distinguished Professor Emeri-
tus at Colorado State University where she currently resides
but also holds an honorary doctorate from Umeå University in
Sweden where she lived for 10 years (Colorado State University
n.d).
But why did she decide to become an occupational therapist
more than 50 years ago?
My brother had a girlfriend, who became his wife later, that was an
occupational therapist, but I already knew in high school that I
wanted to be an occupational therapist. I had another friend that I
think was going to become an occupational therapist and talking
to her when she was starting school confirmed for me that that’s
what I wanted to do. I didn’t know any occupational therapists at
that time, but I found Western Michigan University where I got my
bachelor’s degree. Later I went to Boston University and got my
masters and finally I got my doctorate from Boston.
I think there is an idea about people that go into health profes-
sions, that they want to somehow help people. I knew I didn’t want
to be a teacher, but I knew I wanted to work with people. I heard
about physiotherapists and I thought about going into physiother-
apy but then I thought they don´t work so closely with people and
I wanted to work closely with people, so I chose occupational ther-
apy.
„We have a distinct role as occupational therapists, a unique role”
Anne has developed innovative assessments of quality of occu-
pational performance in her years of research and study and
the Occupational Therapy Intervention Process Model (OTIPM).
Her book, with co-author Abbey Marterella, Powerful Practice:
A Model for Authentic Occupational Therapy was published in
2019 and is based on decades of experience in practice, educa-
tion, and research. The authors encourage the reader to em-
brace the uniqueness of occupational therapy and offer an ac-
cessible and practical guide for providing occupational services
in various settings. The book is the main text for this course but
what does Anne have to say about the seminar?
This is a course about how to practice authentic occupational ther-
apy. I really believe in our profession. And I believe we have some-
thing important to contribute and when we practice authentic oc-
cupational therapy, that’s when we are contributing instead of
one-way focusing on physical body functions or psychological
body functions. And when occupational therapists are tempted to
treat the hand instead of the occupation or treat the mental health
instead of the occupation, then we lose our value. We have a dis-
tinct role, a unique role. As occupational therapists we should think
about occupation, evaluate occupation, and we should use occu-
pation as the intervention.
Gullveig Ösp Magnadóttir,
f.h. ritnefndar
og Guðrún Friðriksdóttir
Iðjuþjálfi hjá Ljósinu
VIÐTAL
Anne G. Fisher, SCD, OT, FAOTA
WE ALL HAVE A DISTINCT ROLE
AS OCCUPATIONAL THERAPISTS,
A UNIQUE ROLE