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"...it is not by looking at things, but by dwelling in them, that we understand their meaning."
--Michael Polanyi (1967, p. 37)
"For it is in the body that both the possibility and the pathway for meaning is given. Indeed, rather than mind animating body, we might say that the reverse is true."
--Gary Kielhofner (1995, p. 165)
The late philosopher of science Michael Polanyi, considered one of the greatest minds of the post-modern era, would have appreciated Gary Kielhofner. Polanyi was dismissive of mechanistic approaches to understanding and describing phenomena, and he valued the importance of self-awareness, exploration, and personal reflection in the process through which people come to know their worlds (Grene, 1969 ; Polanyi, 1964, 1967 ). Polanyi recognized the person as a complex element and participant in his or her relevant community and its culture, and was critical of scientists with strict allegiance to the dogma that only quantitative, objective approaches to knowing can be valid.
These views align closely with Kielhofner's life work on a Model of Human Occupation (MOHO), which began while he was studying for a Master's Degree in Occupational Therapy at the University of Southern California (USC). Dr. Kielhofner drew from his undergraduate degree in psychology at St. Louis University to elaborate the many factors that influence people as doers, emphasizing a person's motivations, experiences, and the characteristics of the environment in shaping behavior. Overall, the model he and his colleagues first published in a four-part series in 1980 (Kielhofner, 1980a, 1980b ; Kielhofner & Burke, 1980 ; Kielhofner, Burke, & Heard, 1980 ) sought to capture the complexities of human agency, drawing heavily from the behavioral and social sciences to explain motivation and choice while also emphasizing the importance of a person's capacity for creating meaning through doing. Dr. Kielhofner reemphasized the assertions of early theorists, such as Adolf Meyer and Eleanor Clarke Slagle, that patterns and tendencies that typify how people use their time provides a window into their overall level of adaptation. The Model of Human Occupation he proposed in 1980 was consistent with the themes of other papers coming from USC during that era (e.g., Burke, 1977 ; Heard, 1977 ; Kielhofner, 1977 ; Shannon, 1977 ).
Kielhofner's work emphasized occupational...