“Garden of occupations”: care strategies in the face of occupational losses and mourning

Abstract

Situations experienced as stressful, such as the death of loved ones, loss of jobs, dreams, projects and others, have directly or indirectly affected people's routinely occupations, resulting in disruptions, changes and withdrawals from daily occupational preferences - both externally and the ones carried out in the domestic environment - which can impact the person and the way in which they engage and participate in social life. This article presents a proposal for intervention and care in the conditions of significant loss and mourning and promotes reflections on this subject from an occupational perspective, correlating concepts from Occupation Science, Logotherapy and Existential Analysis by Viktor Frankl. Therefore, it is based on the interventional strategy of care in mourning, called “Garden of occupations”, which uses elements such as metaphors and drawing as possibilities to create approximations with the theoretical foundation anchored in Occupational Science, from the perspective of existential tension and values of meaning by Viktor Frankl. The interventional proposal “Garden of occupations” is considered a participatory, reflective instrument, with the potential to deepen reflections and understandings about the meanings of life and engagement in occupations in the face of losses suffered.