The Integrated Self Summary

In the book, The Integrated Self by Louis F. Kavar and an article by Chris Lloyd and Courtney O’Connor entitled, Integrating spirituality into mental health rehabilitation these references discusse the identity and assets of spirituality in the human body. Kavar writes upon the culture, values, beliefs, and lifestyle for understanding the spiritual dimensions of a human. Kavar emphasizes how “spirituality functions in our lives in ways that are both transcendent and imminent,” (8). In other words, Kavar believes that spirituality should be focused more upon, especially since it’s used in our everyday activities and we never seem to notice it. Transcendent, which allows us to experience more important individual aspects rather than the past.

In the book, it states “The goal of therapy is to improve an individual’s functioning in the world” (Kavar 27), by having medical practitioners focus on this it presents a view to broaden the therapeutic work done on patients. This helps corporates towards spiritual dimension, which is described and interpreted as the need for: meaning, purpose and fulfillment in life; hope/will to live; belief and faith (Kavar 8). Followed by the generic and spiritual occupations, which are: abundance, function, balance, and justice (Lloyd & O’Connor 169). As the spiritual dimension is important for the attainment of an overall sense of health, well-being and quality of life (Ross 453). Lloyd and O’Connor agrees upon the spiritual dimension statement given by Kavar by stating, “Dimension of spirituality assist individuals in discovering meaning and purpose in their lives, which is important aspect of the occupational therapy process” (171). Incorporating this practice into mainstream health would definitely help patients future success in recovery and progress. Not only would they learn helpful spiritual beliefs, but they also would retain information that would be necessary to do well for future health

However, if practices were more frequent in the health system, then having a basic health plan then it would not be nearly as daunting. Testing patients frequently would also provide doctors and/or therapist with an idea to help combat with the patient's anxiety and those who are very ill. It also would help this because with many tests, each test would not affect the other patients’ and create different results in the hospital (Kavar 26). This gives doctors time to practice and work out their mental issues without affecting their overall persona significantly. Also, while many patients do struggle with the practices, it’s an unfortunate necessity in our current health system. Kavar tells his readers that, “behavioral approach to the understanding of therapeutically goals, the focus is accepting external limitations as generally appropriate and helping an individual to work toward functioning within acceptable social norms (36). Even if spirituality were not practiced very often in order to avoid “privacy of health records” the fact is it helps patients to inhabit a way to handle and work on their mental health because it will provide a better, healthier outcome when or if they leave the health