Writings and Musings
Poster Presentation: Finding Belonging as a Neurodivergent Occupational Therapist
Full text of a poster presentation from the 2025 OTNZ-WNA Clinical Workshops titled ‘Finding Belonging as a Neurodivergent Occupational Therapist: Supporting ourselves so we can support others’ by Rebecca Rae-Hodgson and Lauren Turnbull.
Reflection: OT Exchange 2024
Reflections and learnings from attending the OT Exchange 2024 in Perth. A summary of the talks I attended and how I managed the 2 day event.
Laziness Does Not Exist
My thoughts on the book ‘The Laziness Lie’ by Devon Price and why I highly recommend it.
New Zealand Trauma Conference 2024
A summary of my notes and key takeaways from listening to Bessel van der Kolk at the NZ Trauma Conference in March 2024.
Recovery Models and Frameworks
An exploration of what recovery in mental health means, models of recovery, how occupational therapy approaches are a good fit with the recovery approach and what this might look like in services.
Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice in Mental Health - Lived Experience Feedback
As part of developing a training on neurodiversity affirming mental health care I posed 3 questions to neurodivergent people across a few Facebook groups to get a wider range of lived experience perspectives than just my own to include. I got a range of responses and have compiled the feedback here.
I hope this is a useful starting point/launchpad/continuation for your own thinking and how you can be more neurodiversity affirming in your practice.
Adapting breath and body based activities
Some notes and ideas on adapting breath and body based exercises for different people and different brains.
Values as a guiding force supporting engagement and meaning-making
Poster presentation on creating a values exploration workshop and its relevance to supporting mental health in occupational therapy practice. Presented at the OTNZ-WNA national conference September 2023
OTNZ-WNA Conference 2023
Reflections on presenting at my first occupational therapy conference, including how I managed personally as a person with various support needs, my experience of presenting and reflections on the talks I attended.
Different Kinds of Rest
An exploration of different kinds of rest. What this means and how this can look different to our ‘traditional’ ideas. A categorisation of four types of rest is proposed.
Metaphors for Explaining Chronic Illness
Using metaphors to explain the chronic experience can be helpful for understanding our own experience and trying to explain it to others. Here I’ve summarised: Spoon theory, Forks, Splat, Oxygen tank and Animal scales, and included my sensory jars.
Doing A Difficult Thing
My reflections on study trips away from home, outlining the supports and strategies I used to make these trips possible.
Sleep Hygiene and ME/CFS
An exploration of alternatives to the standard sleep hygiene recommendations that need individualisation and adaptation to suit people with ME/CFS and other conditions.
Special Interest Week
A reflection on my special interests. With prompts from 'Unmasking Autism' by Dr Devon Price, which were adapted from Jersey Noah's Special interest week prompts.
Sensory Processing Systems and Patterns
An exploration of sensory processing systems and patterns and ideas for ways to use our knowledge of how we process sensory information to help with self-regulation.
My word of the year…
Exploring and representing a word of the year. Drilling down to what is important to you and making this concrete.
So what is self-care anyway?
Self-care is so individual and can change day to day. Do what you need to do to look after yourself.
Exploring Your Values
What kind of person do you want to be? What is important to you?
Knowing your values can help you live a life more in line with what really matters to you.