Critically Evaluate the Use Of: the Leisure Ability Model and the Health Promotion/protection Model

Therapeutic Recreation Assignment Shane O`Rourke

Year 4 Rec Man

20006284

Q. Critically evaluate the use of: The Leisure Ability Model and the Health Promotion/Protection Model.

Justify the use of one of these models for an individual with Spinal Chord Injuries.

Before discussing both models we must understand what therapeutic recreation (t.r) is. Morrow (1980) defined t.r as "a process wherein recreation experiences are used to bring about a change the behaviour of those individuals with special needs"

The main use of t.r is to prevent illness from occurring or if illness is already present to improve the life of the individual.

The Leisure Ability Mode (LAM) which was draw up by Peterson and Gunne in 1984 focuses on leisure as a prevention of illness rather than the use of medication.

The main function of the L.A.M is that the end product of t.r services for clients should be and improved independence and satisfying leisure functioning (Peterson and Gunne 1984)

By empowering clients and giving them the skill, knowledge, and ability to participate in leisure it is hoped that the individuals overall quality of life can be improved.

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) stated that "people who learn to control inner experiences will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can hope to come to being happy"

From this statement it is clear that empowerment and the passing on of the correct skills and knowledge by the t.r specialist is the key to the L.A.M and the clients overall health.

Factors discussed by Gunne and Peterson such as Learned Helplessness, Intrinsic Motivation, Internal Locus Of Control and Personal Attribution as well as Choice and Flow all play a major part in the overall workings of the model.

I will now discuss a number of these factors and evaluate the positive and negative effects they can have on clients.

Learned Helplessness; According to Iso-Ahola (1980) T.R is a means to aiding individuals in achieving psychological satisfaction from their leisure participation.

"People generally expect their leisure and recreation participation to be psychologically therapeutic, the term T.R is restricted to the process whereby a therapist actively strives to remove the psychological barriers hindering clients from experiencing satisfying leisure and recreation experiences. Participation in free time activities in itself is meaningless. The most important consideration is what the clients by themselves and with the help of a T.R specialist are able to derive psychologically from their recreation involvement."

For a T.R specialist removing psychological barriers which stop individuals from participating in leisure can be a tough job especially if the individual has very negative experiences in relation to leisure. However the reward if these barriers can be removed can be extremely beneficial for the client.

Seligman looked at another aspect of learned helplessness which can be a barrier; individuals believe that events happening in their lives are beyond their personal control and therefore the individual stops trying to effect changes or outcomes in their lives.

The job of the T.R specialist is to reverse the consequences of learned helplessness. They can do this by a) Increasing the sense of personal causation and internal control, b) increasing the sense of personal choice and alternatives, and, c) achieving the state of optimal experience.

Removing the psychology of L.H from individuals that suffer from it is in theory excellent, however it is flawed in a number of areas; trying to motivate someone who has very negative views of leisure can be extremely difficult, a person who has been helped all their lives by others will find it very hard to believe in their own ability never mind attempt to achieve the state of optimal experience.

A lot of work has to be done by the therapeutic recreational specialist in order to bring about the changes outlined above, however even if small changes are made it can be seen as a result in terms of the individuals improved quality of life.

Another area of huge importance for the individual and the T.R specialist is that of: intrinsic motivation, locus of control and personal causation. (Deci 1975) These three areas help bring the individual towards overall satisfaction which is the main goal of leisure participation.

These three areas are all concerned with challenging, motivating and empowering the individual in their leisure experiences.

It is the job of the T.R specialist to ensure programmes are designed, implemented and evaluated in order to increase the competence and sense of control.

Csikzentmiayli summarised the importance of this area saying "in the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery or perhaps better a sense of participation in determining the content of life, that comes as close to what is usually meant to be happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine".

For this aspect of the model to work again you need co-operation and motivation to succeed on the part of both the individual and the T.R specialist. The specialist is the key person in this area, their programmes must challenge the individual without causing them to fail, the more they are challenged the more their skill levels will improve thus increasing their motivation and the production of feelings of satisfaction, competence and control. There is however a fine line between promoting this positive outcome and the whole thing becoming negative because the programme designed was too tough for the individual. It is up to the T.R specialist and their skill to ensure the outcomes are always positive.

Choice is another area of T.R which merits examination. Lee and Mobilys (1988) idea of T.R programming was that the individual always had a choice when it came to recreation participation, the more options the better for the individual.

The client should have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of sports/activities thus providing them with skills in a variety of different areas, by ensuring this happens T.R specialists are giving the individuals the opportunity to become better and more skilful thus improving what they get out of the leisure experience.

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