Life project and occupational therapy: some assumptions and a mapping for meetings

Abstract

In Brazil, Basic Education, through the establishment of the National Common
Curricular Base, in 2018, incorporated the notion of life project as a curricular
component. However, some states had already introduced the subject “Life Project” in
public schools since the second decade of the 2000s, as occurred in the Comprehensive
Education Program of the State of São Paulo, which delegates to high school the function
of subsidizing young people in the construction of their life projects. Several areas of
knowledge show interest in the notion/category of life project, including occupational
therapy. This study sought to understand under what assumptions and theoretical
contributions occupational therapists have baser their research and technical actions when
approaching the theme “life project”. To this end, a mapping review was carried out in
the SciELO library, in the periodicals Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional, Revista
de Terapia Ocupacional da Universidade de São Paulo and Revista Interinstitucional de
Terapia Ocupacional and in the Biblioteca Brasileira de Teses and Dissertations, in an open
period, until January 2024. 38 text that articulated “occupational therapy” and “life/future
project” were gathered. The set of data gathered and its analysis led to the elaboration of
three thematic axes that configured and delimited the ways in which occupational
therapists use and problematize the theme, with prevailing practices aimed at
(re)constructing the life projects of the public for which they are therapeutic-occupational
actions return. There is also a predominance of this discussion in the productions of the
subareas “social occupational therapy” and “occupational therapy in mental health”.