During the last years in my private occupational therapy practice I used to work with people who already were suffering from health issues and therefore were not feeling well. A main aspect about my work changed back in 2015 after I attended a conference in Switzerland. I heard about research that showed, that a lot of women who were suffering from undefined wrist pain showed a decrease in pain levels after changing their job. And that even when the tasks in the new job where more challenging on a physical level for the wrist than the other position they had. And this was also aligned with what I could see at the practice. Many of my clients who were suffering from health issues were also unhappy with their work life. So I started focusing more on the aspect of mental health even when treating a person with a physical issue.

Occupational therapists in general do not only work on the body structures. They always see the connection between the person, the environment and the occupation. They support clients in in gaining overall wellbeing through occupational performance and belonging. But it was not until I heard about that study, that I made it a priority to find out more about their work life. But still I was often struggling to sufficiently address the environment, the person was working in. That’s when I started to focus on workplace health and wellbeing and health coaching.

I now feel that I can support way more people than in the 1:1 setting of the private practice and can prevent them from even having health issues.