What Is a “Health” Professional? The Changing Relationship of Occupational Therapists and Social Workers to Therapy and Healthcare in Quebec, 1940–1985

Abstract

Abstract. Studies regarding the medicalization process generally focus on the way various physical and psychological conditions have been identified as "health" problems, within specific historical contexts. Less well known is how the therapeutic roles of certain "health" professionals were also a result of the confluence of particular historical events. By comparing the professional trajectories of Quebec's occupational therapists and hospital social workers from 1940 to 1985, this article demonstrates how professionals originally outside of the world of health care created new therapeutic roles for themselves within the constantly expanding institutional health care system. Keywords. health professions, medicalization, occupational therapy, social workRésumé. Les études portant sur le processus de médicalisation ont décrit la transformation, historiquement située, de diverses conditions en problèmes dits de santé. Il est plus rarement constaté, cependant, que le rôle thérapeutique de certaines professions « de santé » se révèle tout aussi ambigu. Par l'étude des trajectoires comparées des ergothérapeutes et des travailleuses sociales hospitalières du Québec de 1940 à 1985, le présent article entend montrer comment des professionnelles originellement extérieures au monde de la santé se sont progressivement octroyé de nouveaux rôles thérapeutiques qui leur ouvrent les portes de nouvelles positions dans les institutions, en croissance perpétuelle, de la santé.

Looking Back to Move Forward: Canadian Occupational Therapy In Public Health, 1914–2019

“…Women have largely dominated the practice of occupational therapy since its inception, while much of the early leadership were male physicians (Driver, 1968;Friedland, 2011). A similar trend can be seen in the history of public health nursing (Prud'Homme, 2016). How gender influenced the development of occupational therapy and public health was an area not fully examined with the present study but that would be a valuable area for further research.…”

“…As touched upon in the first theme, the structure of the Canadian medical system, including its evolution, and provincial and federal legislative frameworks, played a significant role in dictating the extent of collaborative efforts ( Prud’Homme, 2016 ). Examining this broader context sheds light on many periods of malalignment, differing priorities, and insular focuses.…”