34: How To Establish a Collaborative Relationship That Builds Autonomy with Your Clients From the Start

Our clients are people, not diagnoses.  We have the opportunity to develop long term and meaningful relationships with our clients that are fulfilling both to us and to them.  Clients come to you needing guidance, support and YOUR expertise.  

Being careful not to treat therapy as “I’m telling you what to do and you have to do it.” Therapy can and should ALSO include a collaborative approach with both sides providing input in order to reach the best outcomes as demonstrated in the OPTIMAL theory of motor learning research by Lewthwaite and Wulf in 2016.  Learn how Claire performs wellness assessments and how they differ from physical therapy assessments.

It is extremely important for patient and client autonomy that the individual is included in the process and motivated to achieve the outcomes or else what’s the point?!

If you think you don’t have time or it won’t work to include your patients in the plan of care, try it and you will see your pts will achieve goals in less visits and with less effort from you!

Anti-racist action: Look up “digital black face,” a concept we recently learned about and have accidentally infringed upon by using gifs of black people unknowingly. If you’d like to learn more about it, may we suggest the article here https://news.lib.berkeley.edu/digital-blackface and you can also google this concept to learn more.