Purposeful is an attribute of the activity Meaning is attributed to an activity (purposeful or not) by a person
I have always found it useful to ask 'what difference will that make?' to goals that clients come up with. Apparently simple activities then come to life with their unique meaning for that person. If their goal is for some reason unrealistic it also gives the possibility of looking at other activities that would make the same or similar difference. Sometimes clients say 'nothing' in which case we consider whether it is an activity worth working towards. I have a friend who is a jeweller who burnt her hand. She was very concerned about regaining full function, in particular fine control. The GP (family doctor) had only been concerned that the burn healed well and had not suggested any remedial therapy. I could see she was well on the way to losing fine control. I gave her a series of squeezy balls of decreasing size and told her to try picking up beans through to grains of rice and recommended she demand to be seen by the hand therapist. She did, and he gave her some springy spinty thing (OK I'm a mental health OT you know!) and some theraputty and so on. She now thinks OTs are the best thing since sliced bread. Some of those activities aren't even purposeful and are certainly meaningless outside of the context that my friend was operating within. To her it made total sense to squeeze balls and pick up grains of rice because she could see how it would get her closer to getting back to work. Of course as soon as she felt safe and able to work again she did and the rest of the rehab took place there. The difference between me and the doctor was that he was not remotely concerned about her functional ability. The reason those apparently meaningless and purposeless tasks worked is because they were imbued with meaning by my friend. Probably wouldn't work for someone else who'd think you were mad to suggest such interventions. I'd always go for meaning above purpose but that isn't always a simple difference! Rayya Ghul > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Ron Carson > Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 10:29 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Meaning verus Purpose > > Hello: > > I am interested to know other's opinion about the differences, if any, > between the two terms MEANINGFUL and PURPOSEFUL as they relate to activity. > > Thanks, > > Ron > > *********��*********** > > Unsubscribe? Send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > In the message's *body*, put the following text: unsubscribe OTlist > > ** List messages are archived at: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > *********��*********** ---------------------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] *********��*********** Unsubscribe? Send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the message's *body*, put the following text: unsubscribe OTlist ** List messages are archived at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] *********��***********
