Wendy Mooney, a student from the Occupation Therapy Assistant program at the Jacksonville campus, led a group therapy session on her four depressed mock patients for the Psychiatric Disorders Class.  For the final activity in her group session, she had her clients make a pine cone bird feeder using corn starch, a pine cone, and bird feed.  Her reasoning behind  choosing this leisure activity  was to engage her clients’ multiple sensory systems as well as provide a service for nature from which they have the opportunity to develop feelings of self-worth, sense of purpose, self- confidence, and self-identity.  After completing the pine cones, she asked her clients to hang up their cones wherever they wanted to and then had them visit each other’s pine cones and give some positive feedback on their respective work, in another attempt to increase clients’ self-worth, self-confidence, etc.  Wendy picked a creative activity to achieve the short term goal of her depressed clientele and she did a remarkable job.

OTA Feb. 2016 (2)