Since the primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable patients and clients to effectively and autonomously manage the routine tasks of their everyday lives, it’s extremely well-suited to integrating wellness coaching for a more holistic approach to care. Rather than compartmentalizing a patient’s occupational therapy needs into the basic tasks of day-to-day life, zooming out to take a more comprehensive whole-person approach can bring more meaningful and lasting results.
Understanding how wellness coaching pulls together the mind, body, and spirit goes hand in hand with the core philosophies behind standard occupational therapy by improving overall quality of life and day-to-day functioning. That can mean incorporating meditation, nutrition, sensory work, yoga therapy, and more to help unblock a person from achieving their goals.
A patient with temporarily limited mobility may also be experiencing added stress, which spills over into disrupted sleep and eating habits, which can easily snowball into more issues that work against their recovery efforts. By addressing stressors in other areas of patients’ lives, wellness coaches can improve patient outcomes.
Chronic disease, weight management, and compromised physical abilities don’t just affect one aspect of a person. Thus, helping a patient get (and stay) motivated toward making progress doesn’t just come from one narrow approach to therapy.
Wellness coaches bring a broad understanding of natural and holistic solutions to support a patient’s overall health journey, while providing the necessary support, encouragement and accountability to sustain them along the way. The benefit of applying a broader perspective to an individual’s occupational therapy needs is that they’ll also likely see improvements and gains in other aspects of their lives, from emotional growth and better stress management to work-life balance improvements and overall better physical and mental health.
Incorporating wellness coaching into your occupational therapy career is as simple as pursuing continuing education with a health and wellness coaching certification. Catalyst Coaching is the only National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC)-approved wellness coach certification to be an approved provider of continuing education by the American Occupational Therapy Association. We have an established path to obtain the needed credits to meet professional requirements, as well as provide the necessary skills to incorporate health and wellness coaching into their practices.
