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The BRAVE OT Podcast | Real Conversations with Occupational Therapy TrailblazersAuthor: Carlyn Neek - OT Entrepreneur Coach, Educator, Founder of ACTivate Vitality
The BRAVE OT Podcast with Carlyn Neek is all about empowering occupational therapists to step-up, level-up, blaze some trails, and maybe engage in a little conscious rebellion in service of the profession, our clients, our work, our businesses, and living our mission wholeheartedly. We are all about keeping it real, doing hard things, unhuslting, being curious, trying new things, growing through our challenges, and finding joy and fulfilment along the way. Really, we are OTing ourselves and each other. About This Podcast The BRAVE OT Podcast features authentic conversations with occupational therapists doing innovative and interesting work, from private practice owners to clinicians pioneering new approaches to OTs, creating entirely new paths for the profession. Through real conversations, we explore the challenges of trailblazing, the reality of navigating uncertainty, and how OTs support each other through it all. Whether you're an OT practice owner facing uncertainty, a clinician exploring new directions to escape environments that contribute to burnout, or an occupational therapist who's ready to do things differently, these conversations will resonate. We talk about the messy middle of building something meaningful, the isolation that can come with going your own way, and what it really takes to create sustainable work that aligns with your values. Host Carlyn Neek brings her lived experience as a multipassionate ADHDer, her decads of work with adult mental health with high achievers and her OT mentorship and business coaching to these conversations. Creating space for honest dialogue about the challenges we face as innovators in our profession is her superpower. The BRAVE OT Podcast is perfect for: Occupational therapists in private practice, OTs exploring entrepreneurship, clinicians seeking inspiration and community, and anyone interested in the evolving landscape of our profession. We aim for 2 episodes per month. An invitation from Carlyn: If you're an OT Language: en Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship, Science, Social Sciences Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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Ep. 53: Deinstitutionalizing OT - Field Research, Folk Wisdom & Creating Your Own Path with Dr. Josie Jarvis
Episode 1
Monday, 12 January, 2026
Deinstitutionalizing OT: Field Research, Folk Wisdom & Creating Your Own Path with Dr. Josie Jarvis What does it mean to deinstitutionalize yourself as an occupational therapist? In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Josie Jarvis and I explore everything from the historical roots of healthcare systems to why OTs need to reclaim field research and folk wisdom. If you've ever felt stuck in traditional practice settings or wondered how to apply occupational science to your own life, this episode offers both validation and a path forward. We discuss burnout recovery for occupational therapists, the power of community-based folk arts, and why being brave sometimes means daring to ask the "dumb" question. This conversation is for OTs who are ready to experiment, create their own paths, and remember that innovation doesn't require permission. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN THIS EPISODE, WE DISCUSS: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - Why deinstitutionalization matters for practitioners, not just clients - How occupational science can help OTs recover from moral injury and burnout - The historical context of healthcare systems and women's contributions through folk wisdom - Understanding twice-exceptionality (gifted + learning differences) and how it shows up in OT practice - Why field research and observation are more valuable than we've been taught - The problems with the traditional evidence-based practice pyramid and the Tomlin & Borgetto alternative - How grades and academic metrics aren't real and why that matters - Building community through folk arts and crafts as a vehicle for policy change - The Being, Becoming, Belonging quilt project and its impact on systemic change - What it means to be brave: daring to be vulnerable, asking questions, and showing up in your fullness ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT DR. JOSIE JARVIS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dr. Josie Jarvis is a twice-exceptional (ADHD/NVLD/Gifted) occupational therapist, critical implementation scientist, and host of the Evolved Living Podcast. She brings over a decade of clinical experience across home health, acute care, memory care, pediatrics, and K–12 education together with her neurodivergent lived experience to explore how systems shape human occupation, creativity, and identity. After collaborating with Carlyn Neek in the ACTivate Vitality program, Josie deepened her commitment to reviving a contemporary folk arts/crafts and critical implementation science movement that supports collective occupational wellbeing and recovery from systemic harm across borders and practice settings. Her work blends OT/OS scholarship, accessible education, and creative praxis to help practitioners and communities reclaim meaningful occupation and systemic integrity. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RESOURCES MENTIONED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Josie's OT and OS Work can all be found at https://engage.evolvedlivingnetwork.com/ Including: - OT/OS Substack & Evolved Living Podcast: https://josiejarvisot.substack.com - Professional Website: https://josiejarvis.com - OS 101 Course – Foundations of Occupational Science for U.S.-Based OT Practitioners - OS 101 Guide Josie's Creative & Intuitive Work can be found at https://josephinepatricia.substack.com including: - Josephine Patricia Creative Substack - Various products and courses related to rewilding, arts, circles and more Books & Resources: - Witches, Midwives & Nurses Book Club - Article on Witches, Midwives & Nurses - Beyond the Hierarchy (Tomlin & Borgetto Research Pyramid) Previous Episodes of the BRAVE OT Podcast Referenced: - Episode 13: With references to Dąbrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration - Episode 43: Overcoming Entrepreneurial Perfectionism with the Scientific Method ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH CARLYN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ If today's conversation about deinstitutionalizing yourself and finding hope beyond burnout resonated with you, the ACTivate Vitality Program offers a community of OT practice owners who are navigating these same challenges. We focus on building sustainable, values-aligned practices through group coaching, ACT-based frameworks, and genuine support not hustle culture. Book a Clarity Call Learn more about ACTivate Vitality
