Telling people I am a recreational therapy student typically goes one of three ways. One: People act like they know what recreational therapy is to keep the conversation going, even though they have a puzzled look on their face. Two: They may say something along the lines of “Oh, so you just get to play games for a living? That sounds fun”. or Three: They ask what seems to be the simple question….”What is recreational therapy?” 

So what is recreational therapy exactly? 

Well, in order to understand Recreational Therapy, you need to understand leisure and its importance to life. Leisure is a meaningful activity that is chosen by the individual participating in it to fill in what is often considered “free-time”. It can be obligatory or non-obligatory, but it is all about the choice and freedom of the individual participating in the leisure activity. 

Recreational therapy takes a look at how individual’s spend their “free-time” and their leisure interests to assist in adapting healthy leisure activities to promote improved functioning over the individual’s physical, social, cognitive, spiritual, and emotional domains of health. In other words, Recreational Therapy takes a holistic approach and treats the WHOLE person. We look at an individual from all aspects to assist in improving overall quality of life through participating in leisure activities they are interested in. We do this by assessing the client’s needs and interests, creating a recreation-based treatment plan that is goal-oriented, implementing modalities to achieve wanted goals and outcomes, and marking the client’s progress. 

Recreational Therapy utilizes a wide variety of modalities as activity interventions to work on an individual’s functioning. Some common modalities are exercise, arts and crafts, gardening, board games, music, community outings and many more. These activities are created and adapted to fit into the goals and to produce the outcomes specified for each client within their treatment plan.  

While Recreational Therapy is literally fun and games, there is so much more value behind it. It encompasses an individual as a whole and assists in improving their ability and overall satisfaction of participating in life.

Gabriella Brown