Green Care: A Conceptual Framework - Frisk i naturen

5
Green care and its links with other
interventions and approaches
This section explores the similarities and links between green care,
occupational therapy and therapeutic communities as psychosocial
approaches to promote health and well-being.
5.1 Occupational therapy and green care
Occupational therapy is based on an assumption that a pleasant and an
appropriate occupation can promote health and well-being. According
to Kielhofner (2002), human beings share an innate occupational nature.
Human occupation “refers to the doing of work, play, or activities of
daily living within a temporal, physical, and sociocultural context that
characterizes much of human life (p. 1).” It is an interesting notion that
time becomes actually evident by doing, temporal cycles mark daily living.
Green care is full of activities that have to be done in time and often at set
times, such as the feeding of cattle, so green care interventions can be used
to structure the stream of time.
The main goal in occupational therapy is to help patients to live satisfying
and productive lives when their occupational performance or participation
is restricted by providing the means to manage and to adapt to the new
situation. A person’s daily occupation can be limited as a result of health
problems, a poorly designed environment, or problems in their social
life (Christiansen et al, 2005). The affordances and restrictions of an
environment define the occupational performance, which in turn modify
one’s self-concept and social identity. Individuals both adapt to their
environment and try to change it according to their personal objectives.
Personally meaningful activities motivate and promote the development of
physical and social skills which in turn leads to feelings of capability and
competence. In occupational therapy the patient’s engagement is essential
for successful outcomes (Holvikivi, 1995).
Through occupational performance individuals are connected to roles
and their socio-cultural context. There are several models connecting
person, environment, occupation, and performance, for example, the
person-environment-occupation-performance model (PEOP) proposed by
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