Editorial

Abstract

In linking the crafting of something with the worker’s mind and soul and, beyond the individual—with being human—Morris carried forward key ideas of 18 century Romanticism. As a broadly framed philosophical movement, the Romantics championed the power of imagination, seeking self-knowledge through strong emotions, drawing inspiration from nature, and celebrating individuality. Rather than historical artefacts, such ideas live on in Western consciousness. In 1962, Mary Reilly, an American occupational therapist, reformulated Morris’s sentiment as the founding belief of her profession: That “man through the use of his hands as they are energized by mind and will, can influence the state of his own health” (p. 2). In its turn, occupational science holds fast to the notion that people become what they have the potential to be, creating themselves and influencing their health and wellbeing through engaging in occupation (Wilcock, 2006). New insights into the process of becoming a self through occupation heads up this issue of the Journal of Occupational Science, with Maersk (2021) offering a synthesis of psychodynamic, narrative, and developmental psychology theories. Positioning identity as an embodied and reflexive process that occurs over time, Maersk explores the idea of occupation as a source of self-continuity, continuity of experiences, and identity formation. Fundamental to the discussion is the question “Who am I in the process of becoming?” (p. 474). Self-discontinuity, Maersk explains, might occur with unwilling discontinuation of meaningful occupations, such as when transitioning into old age care, or constitute a positive move out of drug dependency, homelessness, or criminal behaviour. While acknowledging the influence of context on who one might become, he argues that people experience a core of stable occupations that support self-continuity, even in the face of fragmentation and changeability in the mosaic of occupations engaged in across different settings and life stages. More directly addressing the hand crafting of objects and its interrelationship with the self, Daily, DiLima, Streett, and Healy (2021) compare the personality and well-being of two groups with, superficially at least, similar leisure occupations: people who build scale models and people who create visual art. This mixed methods study identifies similar actions undertaken for different reasons, such as prior research to ensure accuracy of the model versus identifying details to incorporate into artistic design, and differing levels of life satisfaction