Contemporary narratives: meaning, diversity and context

Abstract

This essay intends to discuss the place of narrative in the domain of the contemporary Occupational Therapy and what makes it a synthesis-theme of knowledge and practice which reveals a certain view on the world, on being and therapy. Confronting the technical and scientific perspectives with the critical ones, the text presents five markers which indicate polarities and tensions between both perspectives. They are: fact and value; validation and uncertainty; unity and multiplicity of occupational therapy; universalism and relativism; neutrality and power; and, activity as a resource and activity as social praxis and cultural manifestation.