Tracing the influence of popular political and social movements of the time, including the Mental Hygiene, Arts and Crafts, and Settlement House movements, Judith Friedland tells the stories of pioneering women in the field and describes how they established professional associations, workshops, and educational programs. She highlights the help they received from male physicians, which gave them access to those with decision-making power, and examines their work in both rural and urban environments with those from different economic and ethnic backgrounds. An informative look at the origins of a field that now has over thirteen thousand practitioners in Canada, Restoring the Spirit is also the compelling story of the rise of working women and their crucial contributions to the history of health care.

Judith Friedland is a professor emerita in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Restoring the Spirit: The Beginnings of Occupational Therapy in Canada, 1890–1930.

Judith Friedland's profile page

?Restoring the Spirit connects the spirit and philosophy of the professions adopted by the early pioneers with a call to action by the author for their successors today to continue, in the words of Thomas Kidner, to “Organise, Agitate and Educate’. This new volume sits alongside the four major books on the history of the profession so far written in English, for the United Kingdom, for Scotland, for the United States and for Australia.” British Journal of Occupational Therapy

"...[Friedland] casts occupational therapy as a potential regenerator, capable of broadening the medical model itself to comprise concern for the complex physical, social, and spiritual requirements for individual well-being. She makes a compelling argument about the largely submerged inheritance of the profession and the potential to mobilize that tradition to transform paradigms of care." Chris Dooley, University of Winnipeg, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History

"Friedland has produced a powerful resource for occupational therapy. Best of all, it was a pleasure to read. I really had no idea of the complex forces at work in the development of my profession. The many experiences I have had over the years now make more sense." Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy