Kielhofner MOHO Summary
Kielhofner is the author and main contributor to MOHO. It began in the 1970s with the earlier roots coming from the contemporary paradigm and its emphasis on how occupations are critical to a client-centered practice and the client’s values and principles. During this time Kielhofner was studying to become an occupational therapist at the University of Southern California. He began the concepts and core construct of MOHO while he was at USC. One of his main influences during this time was Mary Reilly, who originally developed the idea of occupation in life and treatment in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Reilly encouraged the career field of occupational therapy to adopt and occupational based paradigm. Reilly was working with graduate
students at USC in the mid-1970s (Kielhofner, 2009). Although Kielhofner supported Reilly’s occupational based paradigm, he also felt like it was too broad. He defined her paradigm as a broad collection of assumptions or core constructs that give coherence to the profession. He noticed a disconnect in Reilly’s occupational based paradigm between occupation and how it relates to a person’s desires, values, and environment (Braveman et al., 2010).
The primary focus of MOHO emphasized the importance of occupation in relations to an individual, but also focused on a client’s values and desires. The theorist behind MOHO recognized that many different factors contributed to difficulties in everyday occupation. Before the late 1970s, practiced focused on motor, cognitive, and sensory impairments and how these impairments impacted human occupation. MOHO pointed out the deficits and challenges in the motivation for occupation, the influence of social and physical environment, skilled performance of life tasks, and keeping positive involvement in roles and routines. MOHO fills the gaps in these problems and challenges because it focus on the factors listed above. Although this paper is about MOHO and its application into the field of mental health, it is important to understand the person behind the model and the philosophies that have molded the model together since it was published in AJOT back in 1980. Kielhofner believed that the nature of people makes them occupational, and therefore they need to be active (Kilehofner, 2010).
students at USC in the mid-1970s (Kielhofner, 2009). Although Kielhofner supported Reilly’s occupational based paradigm, he also felt like it was too broad. He defined her paradigm as a broad collection of assumptions or core constructs that give coherence to the profession. He noticed a disconnect in Reilly’s occupational based paradigm between occupation and how it relates to a person’s desires, values, and environment (Braveman et al., 2010).
The primary focus of MOHO emphasized the importance of occupation in relations to an individual, but also focused on a client’s values and desires. The theorist behind MOHO recognized that many different factors contributed to difficulties in everyday occupation. Before the late 1970s, practiced focused on motor, cognitive, and sensory impairments and how these impairments impacted human occupation. MOHO pointed out the deficits and challenges in the motivation for occupation, the influence of social and physical environment, skilled performance of life tasks, and keeping positive involvement in roles and routines. MOHO fills the gaps in these problems and challenges because it focus on the factors listed above. Although this paper is about MOHO and its application into the field of mental health, it is important to understand the person behind the model and the philosophies that have molded the model together since it was published in AJOT back in 1980. Kielhofner believed that the nature of people makes them occupational, and therefore they need to be active (Kilehofner, 2010).