Occupational therapy lacks a consensus regarding its theory base, technical tools, contribution to society, ethical stance, and relationship to medicine. This study proposes steps to achieve a new consensus and to resolve the crisis focus on entry-level education. The proposed steps include the critical assessment of the educational foundation for practice, the recognition that a liberally educated occupational therapist can serve patients better and meet pressing societal needs, and the pursuit of closer relationships with liberal arts colleges by occupational therapy academic departments. A "new breed" of occupational therapists, that is, therapists who are liberally educated, will be capable of thinking in broad categories and will be open to new ideas and aware of ethical implications; they will be familiar with principles, able to practice from a knowledge base, and prepared to improve the profession's practice: they will possess the skills to be leaders.

The motivational theories behind five theoretical approaches in occupational therapy that claim to be generic are explained. With the exception of the occupational behavior approach, the motivational perspectives are only implied features of the following other occupational therapy approaches discussed: object relations analysis, action consequence approach, recapitulation of ontogenesis, and developmental facilitation. These motivational explanations are developed and then applied to a case example. Finally, the occupational therapy approaches are analyzed in terms of the viability of their motivational perspectives to determine their adequacy as generic approaches for the profession.

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This article is a discussion of the developmental tasks of adolescence, and the additional burden disability places on adolescents as they meet the demand of those tasks. The role of occupational therapy in the provision of services to disabled adolescents is discussed, with recommendations of how to make such provision more congruent with the philosophy of occupational therapy.

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