The Power Threat Meaning Framework & Occupational Therapy: Where lived experience intersects

The Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) is a non-diagnostic approach to understanding human distress that was co-produced by professionals and survivors, which was published by the British Psychological Society in 2018. The PTMF calls for a shift in perspective that moves away from the pathologisation of a person’s suffering as ‘mental illness’ to a non-diagnostic approach that understands human distress in the context of individual experiences which aligns well with occupational therapy principles.

The framework can help to create hopeful understandinsg of people’s lives, strengths and difficulties that are not based on medical diagnoses and psychological deficit. Instead, the PTMF focuses on the operation of power in our lives and the impact of the resulting threats and how we make sense of those experiences considering the strategies we use to survive. The PTMF is a framework for social change that can be used by individuals, and it can also be applied by communities, groups and organisations.

Together Amanda and Kate will briefly introduce the framework reflecting on their own therapeutic relationship highlighting the overlaps, the differences and the practical applications of the PTMF in the occupational therapy process.

•  Join them to:

• • Consider why it is important to move away from medicalised approaches from a lived expert perspective
  • Find out more about the PTMF and how it can integrate, support and complement occupational therapy models, principles and practice
  • Reflect on and challenge your own beliefs thinking practically about how you might draw on the PTMF to inform and add to your own clinical reasoning and practice
  • Hear reflections on Amanda and Kates shared experience of the ups and downs of developing a therapeutic relationship from the standpoint of these two different, but compatible models