Occupational Therapists are mostly concerned with how your problems are affecting the things you do in your everyday life that are important to you.
You might be having difficulty with looking after yourself, getting out of the house, socialising, learning, having a meaningful daily routine or doing things that you enjoy or that help you to relax. This is what we mean by 'occupation' - activities that are important and meaningful to you.
We can help you find ways of building up your skills and confidence so that you can do the things that are important to you. We can help you identify what makes you feel good and to set new goals that help you stay well. We can also work with parents, carers and teachers to find ways they can help you, and we might look at whether their should be changes made to your environment to make things easier for you. Sometimes we will do activities with you - this might be at the clinic, in your home, at school or out in the community.
Occupational Therapy is generally quite practical and it focuses on improving your everyday functioning so that you can do the things you want to do that make you feel happy, fulfilled and help you to get the most from life. Here in CAMHS we focus on the difficulties that affect your mental health.