thelittlegoldenpothos
The Nurture Project
This blog is created for the nurture project of MARIE FRANCES PAGADUAN of 1OTA for THE NURTURE PROJECT under the course, UNDERSTANDING OCCUPATION.
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THIRD SHIFTING PERIOD: How is my plant? Describe your thoughts and feelings about your plant.
Currently, I have already seen the changes from the first time I got the plant to what it is now. It gives me a feeling of fulfillment that I was able to take care of this plant and let it live for months which I did not even expect. From the first and second period, I already got the hang of taking care of it. It has become a part of my routine to care for the plant. The fulfillment I felt during this time made me realize that this how occupational therapists feel when they see the progress of their clients as they have seen their progress from the first time they handled the client to the end of their therapy. During this shifting period, one of the key notes that was emphasized to me by the experience of taking care of this plant is how modifying its surroundings could make a huge impact on its growth. It is not unknown to us that we experienced consecutive typhoons during this shifting period which undoubtedly affected our lives. As I have said in the past submissions, I struggled in giving my plant a good living condition given the circumstances that I am in such as our location. I was already scared that the plant may die inside the house since I could not leave it outside the window because it would get destructed if I did due to the rains and winds brought by the typhoons. What I did not expect is how the plant thrived more inside the house than when it was outside. It was the risk it took to blossom. The change in its surroundings greatly improved its state as it would always look like it was on the edge when it was still outside of the windows. This is similar to how we as Occupational Therapists work to help our clients. As occupational therapists, we take careful consideration of the context of the client such as environmental factors and personal factors as reiterated by the OTPF-4 for it plays a huge part in the OT Domain. From these considerations, we use our professional reasoning in making the client-centered interventions may it be seeing the occupation as means or as an end, whether it is occupation-based, focused, or centered, or through top-down and bottom-up reasoning. While that experience was something that was something accidental, it also made me feel that everything that we do for our clients are also risks we take, and this poses a responsibility in us to always be grounded in what we have learned in studying for this profession as there are no rooms for mistakes in this profession. Our clients entrust to us their lives that they may be able to do their occupations through our help and the response to this trust is doing our responsibility in executing the necessary actions and interventions for them.
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THIRD SHIFTING PERIOD: What did I learn or realize during this time while taking care of this plant for one semester?
To be honest, the duration of taking care of this plant was actually filled with doubts and uncertainties which are evident from how I felt with the plant during the first two submissions. However, it is worth noting that the Nurture Project has truly nurtured me with realizations and learnings about the profession. The lessons that we took in Understanding Occupations often reflect on the experiences that I had in taking care of this plant. The Nurture Project greatly helped me in bridging the knowledge I get from lectures with a real-life situation which is taking care of this plant that led me to having a fuller grasp on the concepts of Occupational Therapy. The whole process of taking care of this plant is already grounded in philosophical assumption that “Each individual is influenced by stage-specific maturation of the species, the social nature of the species and cognitive structure of the species” because as caretakers, we are with the plant from the very first day to its process of maturation and we take part in influencing in it. Moreover, as occupational therapists, we also learn from people and work with different people in order to provide our clients interdisciplinary interventions for their well-being. With my parents’ guidance and help, I was able to successfully take care of this plant which is relevant to the importance of collaboration with other people. In this profession, we collaborate with people of other disciplines by working as teams and utilizing our own specializations in making sure that the client gets holistic care. Other than these, it made me better understand how disabilities, injuries, and many concerns that we address are most of the times inevitable and it lies on us to help the clients in enabling them to function in their occupations by adopting and adapting. Just like what happened to my plant during the second shifting, I was able to give it a second chance to live by making the necessary adjustments and modifications. Lastly, the therapeutic use of self is one of the concepts we use in the profession and this is one concept that was instilled to me and that I have observed in myself. The attitude and mentality we have in ourselves play a vital role in the success of our interventions as we work consciously with our clients. Through the therapeutic use of self, we are able to facilitate optimal experience and outcome. I once said during the first shifting period how I was not inclined to doing occupations such as taking care of plants as it does not interest me. However, immersing myself in the experience changed my mindset and my attitudes towards the activity. By this change, I was able to take care more of the plant. In relation to changing mindsets through immersing in the experience, it is comforting to know how I am not the only one who went through this phase just as how one of the resource persons during the virtual tour also had this experience where he went from being clueless about working with children to working in the pediatric setting in the present time. It is important for us to know that by working in this profession, we are also building relationships with people. Our relationships with our clients and our co-workers should be built on the foundation of trust and communication. Without this foundation, we will just get sidetracked and we will not be able to accomplish the objectives we have set in the first place.
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THIRD SHIFTING PERIOD: At the end of this semester, how do I feel about letting go of this plant?
For the past few days, I have also been thinking of what I would do with my plant after this project. If it were to be the old person that I used to be, I would have probably disposed it already after passing my last submission for the Nurture Project. However, this plant is the fruit of my hard work. Other than being the evidence of my efforts, struggles, doubts, and feelings for this whole project, my plant also serves as an evidence that I made it through the first semester of my first year in college as a student of Occupational Therapy. There were times where I watered the plant only 2 days after the last one because of stress and there were times that I got paranoid over the plant not knowing whether it would die already. I would say that this plant is that “best friend” that was with me all throughout this semester. It mirrors everything that has happened for the past few months. I could not say that I will easily let go of this plant, but I am also not closing this plant from opportunities and from potentials it could have. As for now, I plan to take my time in taking care of it inside this house. Maybe in the near future, I could sell it for rehoming then buy other more plants to take care of since I already know what I am doing after the experiences I got from taking care of my golden pothos plant.
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FIRST SHIFTING PERIOD:
The plant I chose for this project is a hanging Golden Pothos or also called Devil’s Ivy (Epipremnum aureum). It is a trailing vine with heart-shaped yellow and green leaves. When I was picking a plant to take care of, I considered a lot of things. First, I know myself to be someone who has a short-attention span and I do not commit a lot to raising plants. Second, I considered our location since we are living in a second-floor apartment where the sunrays do not always shine upon on which automatically made me reject plants that are high maintenance when it comes to sun exposure. With these considerations, I opted for the Golden Pothos. According to Kier Holmes of Gardenista, this plant can thrive in low light and humidity while withstanding neglect for long periods of time which makes it an ideal plant for busy people like me. According to people who have took care of Pothos in the past, it can go on for a week without watering if watered properly since overwatering can cause its root to rot. Additionally, this plant gives the benefit of air purification especially formaldehyde, benzene fumes, and carbon dioxide.
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FIRST SHIFTING PERIOD: What did I feel during this period while taking care of this plant? How are these feelings helpful or not helpful in the activity?
When the plant arrived in our house, I felt excited for some unknown reason and I think this helped with me in trying to take care of this plant. Despite its characteristics of being able to withstand conditions, I still felt as if it was fragile. I had questions such as what if I become too confident in not overwatering it that I have already deprived it more than it could withstand? The excitement I felt upon having this plant translated into actions as I devoted a day of knowing how to take care of this plant. Even my family helped me in ways such as knowing the spot where we will place the plant and constantly checking it. During the first week, I was confident that the plant has been watered well before being delivered and I did not see any signs of underwatering such as yellowing of leaves and drying of the roots. It carried on like that until the second week. However, the rapid changes in the weather of Manila affected the plant. During this week, days went sunny to rainy alternately. There came a day where it almost dried some of the leaves of my plant because of the sudden increase of temperature. That was the time that I became more conscious and aware of taking care of this plant as it changed my habits. From checking the plant every other day, I already check it daily to make sure that it does not dry up too much. I was fortunate that only 1-2 leaves were affected that time and it made me happy that I was able to take a hold of the situation, but it did bring a different kind of consciousness to me. Now, I have become more hands-on in doing this project.
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FIRST SHIFTING PERIOD: What did I learn or realize during this period while taking care of this plant? How is this relevant or not to my course?
During this period of taking care of this plant, I realized many things such as how taking care of this plant bears great similarities to what we do in Occupational Therapy. First, the careful considerations I made about my environment for when I chose my plant mirrors the relevance of socio-environmental circumstances in Occupational Therapy. In this situation, the plant acts as my client and I am the caretaker or the Occupational Therapist. In the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement (CMOP-E), we see how the environment influences the client and the occupation in many ways such as physical, cultural, institutional, and social components (Polatajko et. Al, 2007). In choosing this plant, I assessed my environment on how it would affect the plant such as the weather, the sunlight exposure, and other variables needed by the plant. With these considerations, the concept of being client-centered is also emphasized as I put the plant as the core domain of concern and I as the therapist, envisions the health and well-being of the plant. Moreover, the tool “Conscious Use of Self” can also be seen in my personal experience. The Conscious Use of Self is defined as the “planned use of his or her personality, insights, perceptions, and judgments as part of the therapeutic process.” (Punwar & Peloquin, 2000). While the actual application of this tool emphasizes also on the planned interactions between the therapist and the client, in my perspective, I was able to use this by relatively changing my attitude and personality in taking care of the plant. This is in comparison to how I was before this project where I do not really take interest in putting that much attention in doing things like gardening as I view it before as a leisure that does not interest me before. In line with this, we have always emphasized how occupations can be considered as occupations if it has meaning to the client which makes it an effective means of treating clients as Occupational therapy is based on the belief that purposeful activity may be used to mediate dysfunction and elicit maximum adaptation (AOTA, 1979) Through this activity, I have come to understand more of how people give value to things differently as I put myself in the position of someone who enjoys doing this activity. I can empathize with the way that they give their effort to this occupation which is one of the characteristics needed by an Occupational Therapist. Additionally, the philosophical assumption that “Each individual is influenced by stage-specific maturation of the species, the social nature of the species and cognitive structure of the species” can be observed in this activity as the plant goes through the process of its maturation while being influenced by its nature such as I as its caretaker and the things I do for its growth, and the physical environment around it is surrounded with.
In conclusion, the first part of this project has helped me to have a fuller and realistic grasp of the concepts that we were introduced to during the first shifting period such as the models of Occupational Therapy, its definitions, and its philosophical bases and assumptions. It provides as this understanding by somehow simulating it in real life situation with us exercising our duties and responsibilities in taking care of the plant such that it mirrors the relationship between an Occupational Therapist and their client. As we go further in this project, I know that I will be able to learn more of the profession, not just bound by the knowledge from lectures and discussions, but also in its application in real life.
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FIRST SHIFTING PERIOD: REFERENCES
Almanac, O. F. (n.d.). Pothos. Old Farmer’s Almanac. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://www.almanac.com/plant/pothos
Holmes, K. (2020, March 5). Pothos: A Plant Care and Growing Guide for a Tropical Houseplant. Gardenista. https://www.gardenista.com/posts/gardening-101-pothos/
Polatajko, H. J., & Townsend, E. (2007). The Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement (CMOP-E). https://vula.uct.ac.za/access/content/group/9c29ba04-b1ee-49b9-8c85-9a468b556ce2/Framework_2/pdf/The%20Canadian%20Model%20of%20Occupational%20Performance%20and%20Engagement.pdf
Roles and Functions of Occupational Therapy in the Management of Patients With Rheumatic Diseases. (1986). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 40(12), 825–829. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.40.12.825
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