Altruism

 AOTA Code of Ethics Deep Dive Part 1 (PDE) 9-30-22 

            I think of Altruism as the act of being selfless. We demonstrate altruism when we are being in tune to our own feelings and other feelings. The concept from the Occupational Therapy perspective is to be intentional in our behaviors of being caring, dedicated, responsive to feelings/environment and becoming understanding no matter the circumstance.

 We are advocates for our clients and to stand up for them, we have to empathize and understand their point of view. Occupational Therapy is a very soft-hearted career path, and it requires a lot of altruistic behavior. Clients come to us in a very vulnerable state seeking out help, and this is why it is important for us to be dedicated to sensitive to their conditions.

The ways that we as future practitioners can actively participate and improve our skills of altruism lie within our own dedication and self-awareness to look inward to better ourselves. An example of how to practice this is to really understand what your friends are saying if they are in distress. Try giving calm feedback that doesn’t bring them down, but instead lifts them up to build self-esteem. I think this situation is very important to improve our intra-personal skills to transfer into our clinical setting. There are many things that we can do to be more in tune to our altruistic behaviors towards our clients, but I find we must give ourselves some grace in order to do this. If you cannot treat yourself with respect and dedication- how are you going to treat others like that?

Resource:

American Occupational Therapy Association. (1993). Core values and attitudes of occupational therapy practice. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 47, 1085–1086. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.47.12.1085