I talked to one of my professors today and I just want to try to recall some of the things she mentioned and reflect on them for my records. Keep in mind I'm a horrible paraphraser! Let's go ahead and get started.
So today, I asked her what she did differently the second time around to help her improve as a practitioner. She said that the two things that she did differently was 1) found appreciation in theory and 2) had a mentor that helped her problem solve and improve her clinical reasoning. She spoke a lot about the importance of understanding theory and using it as a way to ground your practice. She said that it truly helps you to understand how to approach intervention all the way from interaction to evaluation to outcomes and provides guidance on choosing the best treatment for a patient. We've only learned about three occupation-based models (EHP, MOHO, OA) so far, but I can already see how understanding these theories would prove to be important as a therapist. It really helps you to broaden your scope and see your patients through a more comprehensive lens.
Later in the conversation, she mentioned that your learning as a therapist will never stop. She even went as far as to say that if you look back and ask yourself, "Am I doing therapy the same way I did last year?" and your answer is yes, you are doing something wrong. She said not everything in your practice will change but that every year you should be finding better ways to improve your practice and become a better therapist. She said you do this through continued education, reading updated research, and exploring new theories. Basically, to sum it up, you should never become complacent with your skills, you should always seek to learn more in an effort to provide the best services for your clients. Common sense right? One would think! However, unfortunately (and I've witnessed this myself, especially with older therapists), that drive to constantly learn new and better ways of providing therapy sometimes wanes and therapists do seem to become somewhat content with the knowledge they already know.
We talked for a long time so I can't remember everything, but I tried to pull out the bigger details and what I thought were important "take home messages."