Global Perspectives in Professional Reasoning

Book excerpt: Global Perspectives in Professional Reasoning is the first text of its kind to address the broader scope of occupational therapy practice and the different types of professional reasoning that can be employed, including strategic, political, nonlinear, creative, and social reasoning. This text encompasses a wide range of thinking skills and cognitive processes used by occupational therapists, from reflecting on practice to solving problems, and from reasoning in the clinic to reasoning in the wider political, social, and cultural worlds. Marilyn B. Cole and Jennifer Creek and their contributors are therapists, educators, and scholars who have explored new areas of professional practice and written about the thought processes that reinforced their actions. The authors come from around the world, providing a global perspective while also demonstrating that occupational therapists within different cultures serve remarkably similar human needs: to be included in their communities, to have occupational choices, and to determine their own life course. Many of the contributors in Global Perspectives in Professional Reasoning have identified and analyzed their own thought processes as they tackled complex and challenging tasks, often in unfamiliar contexts. These challenging tasks have produced several entirely original conceptualizations of professional reasoning, such as development and spiritual reasoning. The contributors start by observing what is going on, try to make sense of the situation, and then work out what to do. Other contributors are fascinated by a theory, a policy, or an approach; study it; and then look for ways to utilize it in practice. Most of the time, contributors focus their attention on the process of reasoning rather than on the specific types of reasoning they are employing or on desired outcomes. Inside Global Perspectives in Professional Reasoning, each chapter charts the learning process that contributors went through as they extended their thinking skills and processes to meet the challenges they encountered. All the chapters describe reasoning in practice and all of them utilize theory. A broad and fresh take on professional reasoning in occupational therapy practice, Global Perspectives in Professional Reasoning is the perfect resource for occupational therapy students and clinicians who want to utilize reasoning to tackle the most complex and challenging of tasks.