Occupational therapy through a critical lens: Reconciling occupational therapy theory and practice with the disability movement

Paul Abberley's 1995 critique of occupational therapy exposed a seemingly irreconcilable disagreement between the disability movement and the discipline. Abberly asserts that occupational constitutes a power imbalance in therapeutic relationships and serves to perpetuate the disablement of impaired people by obscuring the social causes of disability. These criticisms are seemingly damning to discipline which purports to concern itself with enablement of individuals with impairments.This article constitutes a review of responses to the disability movement from within occupational, namely from Law (1991), Craddock (1996), Kielhofner (2005) and Hammell (2006) as well as a personal reflection upon the implications of such criticisms for the future of occupational practice.