Rehabilitation in 14 key concepts
Last updated: 17 November, 2025
The general theory of rehabilitation is based on two main concepts: adaptation and homeostasis, which is perhaps more accurately referred to as allostasis (see my post on biopsychosocial disequilibrium). The theory proposes that rehabilitation facilitates adaptation in two ways: by catalysing change and providing direct assistance. Theories rarely arise de novo. They continue earlier conceptual evolution, standing on the shoulders of giants, and may be helped by new evidence. This page reviews the history of rehabilitation’s development through 14 key concepts. For those unfamiliar, Neil MacGregor covered the history of the world in 100 objects. The flow is broadly chronological, though many concepts took decades or centuries to appear in rehabilitation. Indeed, before 1533, the idea of rehabilitation did not exist in English.
I acknowledge that this history of rehabilitation, presented in 14 key concepts, is selective. It primarily draws on English-language sources and considers healthcare within a Western context. I suspect that most countries and cultures have undergone similar phases and developed similar concepts. However, culture significantly influences all aspects of healthcare, so details will vary. Moreover, although I have referenced sources I have found, I cannot claim this is comprehensive.
Table of Contents
Introduction – concepts and theories.
“Concepts are the building blocks of thoughts. Consequently, they are crucial to such psychological processes as categorization, inference, memory, learning, and decision-making. “ [Eric Margolis & Stephen Laurence. Concepts. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.] They are generated by and evolve from thoughts and directly influence our thoughts. They are abstract and, arguably, depend upon language.
A theory is “a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained” [Oxford English Dictionary]. In other words, theories are usually expressed using concepts and may introduce concepts when written. As Patrick Jackson wrote, “A theory is a rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking, or the results of such thinking.”
This interrelationship between theory and concepts means that theories can only be understood if the ideas are understood. A concept is best understood when one knows something about its origin and uses, and a theory is more easily understood when one is familiar with its context. What was the conceptual situation when the theory was developed?
This page offers an overview of the conceptual development of rehabilitation, from its origins in Western cultures to the General Theory of Rehabilitation. The diagram below illustrates a rough timeline, which is further explored on this page.
The mists of time.
People have always experienced disease and trauma and will often have residual losses after the acute phase. Although there was no recognition of a specific recovery process, some reactions would have occurred.
Recognised specialisation in diagnosing and treating ill health emerged as civilisations grew and became sufficiently productive to enable some people to focus on health matters. Early practices were likely holistic, considering individuals within their cultural contexts. The main approaches were mystical, supportive, and practical actions.
I will discuss three entirely natural responses, not driven by any medical knowledge: adaptation, use of feedback as part of learning, and ideas concerning recovery and convalescence.
Adaptation.
Greeks and Romans had words for ‘to adapt’; in Latin, adaptare combined ad- and -aptus to make “to fit”.
Armies would have conducted systematic training to improve soldiers’ skills before any combat, practising manoeuvres and other related activities. Hospitals were common in Roman times, and their primary goal would have been to restore men to active duty. If feasible and necessary, injured soldiers would have received similar educational and task-specific training as untrained recruits. Therefore, armies initially focused on rehabilitation, mainly for men of fighting age, as a practical and sensible way to optimise the army’s strength.
Societies have also helped people adapt, with the primary concern being to enable them to contribute to society. They did not consider that they were enhancing adaptation; they saw a problem and considered the best way to resolve it.
An excellent example is the early development of prostheses, which enabled users to return to some functional activities or, occasionally, to be more socially acceptable. Alan Thurston wrote a fascinating paper on the early history of artificial limbs, with photographs. Prosthetic legs enabling someone to walk were developed by 500 BCE, and possibly much earlier. The Anglesey leg was a steel leg with a knee joint, first manufactured in 1800.
Although rehabilitation was first used in a health context in 1888, further development and specialisation emerged after World War I. In addition to providing prostheses, a new focus emerged, addressing losses, for example, by increasing strength or attempting to recapitulate neurological development to teach ‘normal motor control’, as the Bobath Approach to stroke rehabilitation aimed to do.
Andrea Conti’s historical review, Western Medical Rehabilitation through Time: A Historical and Epistemological Review, reports the mention of rehabilitation in the Lancet on May 12, 1888: “where it is possible to read that “the little sufferers (i.e., children that suffer) from parental ignorance or neglect are admitted as patients, and their physical rehabilitation attempted under conditions most favourable to success.””.
We should investigate natural adaptive processes, such as how to utilise hope effectively, to improve our effectiveness. Although rehabilitation experts, philosophers, and others recognised that adaptation occurs, clinical rehabilitation did not acknowledge or value the importance or relevance of adaptation to the rehabilitation process.
Feedback.
Providing feedback on a person’s performance is a fundamental part of rehabilitation; it is central to all learning, and a significant part of adaptation is, at its core, learning new ways to achieve goals. The concept of feedback was developed in about 1280, driven by the need for accurate timekeeping. [See Feedback control: an invisible thread in the history of technology. By Dennis Bernstein.] The technology of the verge-and-foliot escapement enabled the development of “a device with a precise terminal (steady-state) velocity to serve as the clock speed.”
Feedback technology advanced considerably during the Industrial Revolution, when the governor was invented to enable steam engines to maintain a constant speed. Feedback became increasingly important in industry, first in mechanical engineering and later in electrical and electronic engineering. The extraordinary power of feedback is now fully appreciated, for example, in artificial intelligence.
Feedback is integral to almost all biological systems; it enables learning and is central to the education and training of healthy individuals and the rehabilitation of those with illnesses. (See also the blog post on neural plasticity.)
Therefore, feedback must be a fundamental part of rehabilitation. However, although feedback is recognised as a component of rehabilitation interventions, we have not fully explored better methods of delivering feedback beyond electronic devices, such as accelerometers and pedometers.
Active research into how to optimise feedback to patients on the quality and extent of their performance in real-time and across all behaviours could significantly improve patients’ outcomes.
Recovery and convalescence.
Recovery following illness and trauma is so common that it was not deemed worthy of notice. I have discussed the misunderstandings associated with the term, recovery, in my post on recuperation, recovery, and rehabilitation.
In approximately 1480, and initially in France, the term “convalescence” emerged to describe the recovery period following an illness. The verb, to convalesce (Latin derivation: to grow strong), suggests an understanding that recovering after illness and returning to previous activities is a specific process and phase of recovery.
Active interest in convalescent care increased from around the 1790s; the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital in Margate was established in 1791 to help Londoners facing poverty recover from illnesses such as scrofula (tuberculosis). Convalescence became a significant industry in Victorian times; many convalescent homes were opened, and convalescence featured in novels and artwork.
As Harold Balme wrote in the British Medical Journal in 1943, rehabilitation replaced convalescence: “rehabilitation threatens to displace the old-time tonic as a convalescent cure for one and all.” Convalescence persisted in the NHS and elsewhere until 1980; one of my roles as a medical registrar was to see patients in a convalescent hospital.
The critical importance of this concept lies in recognising that people have a recovery period following a significant illness. This is often overlooked. Many people will pass through this phase without difficulty. Still, with increasing numbers of people surviving severe illnesses and spending weeks or months in bed, a more directed approach to low-intensity exercise may be needed. I have discussed this in a post: Convalescence, Recovery, and Rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation has tended to contrast itself with convalescence, suggesting that the latter is a passive process that does not require any input. This is mistaken. If recovery lasts more than four weeks, the person will likely benefit from clear guidance and setting expectations; sometimes, a more active approach is needed.
The scientific revolution.
On the night of 11-12 October 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America. More importantly, he introduced a new idea—that there were unknown things to be discovered; before then, there was no word for what he had done. In “The Invention of Science,” David Wootton suggests that this marks the start of the scientific revolution. Another book, The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700, supports this view.
During the first 400 years, healthcare science progressed. I will examine the emergence of a crucial concept, biomedical healthcare, which, rather than supporting rehabilitation, may have negatively impacted it; it is not one of my 14 concepts. However, in the first 50 years, a general idea of rehabilitation appeared, and I will discuss this after covering biomedical healthcare, a concept that significantly influenced rehabilitation.
Biomedical healthcare.
Although not among the 14 key concepts, one must recognise one extraordinarily productive consequence of the scientific revolution. The systematic and structured investigation of human anatomy, physiology and disease led to many advances and fostered the evolution of the biomedical model of illness. It was also associated with the development of dualism by René Descartes, separating mind from body.
The strength of these two concepts – a biomedical model of illness and mind-body dualism – has had a huge influence on all thinking about healthcare and continues to do so. This is now negatively impacting all healthcare, including rehabilitation.
The scientific revolution ultimately led to numerous effective treatments, many of which emerged in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond.
In the 1800s, with increasing affluence, people with longer-term health problems often tried physical treatments. These included using electricity and promoting exercise. In her review, Physical Therapy at Bath War Hospital: Rehabilitation and Its Links to WWI, Heide Pöstges wrote, “A systematic approach to physical therapies that included a combination of bathing, electrotherapy, exercising, and massage had become part of the treatment provided in hospitals by the end of the 19th century.” They were unlikely to have any specific effect, but they may have had a beneficial impact secondary to cultural expectations of effectiveness
Thus, at the outset of the Great War in 1914, there were some services to assist wounded fighting men in returning to active service, but no other systematic approach to help people recover from ill health. There was no underlying theory or rationale, except that the training needed to become a soldier or sportsman was applied to soldiers after they had been wounded.
Rehabilitation: a social process.
The word ‘rehabilitation’ was first used in 1533. It referred to individuals who had committed socially disapproved misdemeanours and lost their social standing. It meant restoring the person to their previous social position. Initially, it would have applied only to those in the upper echelons of society.
Initially, rehabilitation was not linked to disease or illness. It involved a change in social roles imposed on someone, even if it was due to alleged misbehaviour. Its emphasis on restoring an individual to actively desired social roles remains essential and should continue to be the aim of rehabilitation. As noted earlier, it was first used in a health context in 1888; however, the concept of rehabilitation emerged during the First World War.
I am unaware of any description of how rehabilitation of social status occurred, and it probably varied for each person.
Nonetheless, the crucial conceptual point is that, from its first use, rehabilitation has encompassed:
- Assisting a person’s response to a change in their social situation
- Aiming at achieving valued social roles
- Acting on both the person and the context.
These are still vital aspects of rehabilitation.
The Great War (1914-18).
The First World War marked the Big Bang of rehabilitation, the start of modern healthcare rehabilitation. Before 1914, rehabilitation only meant restoring social status to a few people who had lost their high position. Within four years, the foundations of rehabilitation had been laid.
War has driven many advances in healthcare and society as a whole. The First World War forced governments to consider the thousands of healthy men who could not return to their previous employment due to war injuries. The challenge was to restore them to a state where they could work, whether fighting or contributing in a civilian role.
The country’s response was to establish hospitals to treat the injuries and aid the men in their recovery. The Bath War Hospital was one. Heide Pöstges describes the approach centred on “massage, mechanotherapy, electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, and light therapy.” There was also an emphasis on exercise.
Many patients at the Bath War Hospital had shell shock. Dr Martyn, the medical officer, noted “the shell-shock element producing the unconscious malingerer, and by the fact that whereas the civilian is, as a rule, most anxious to get back to his work, many of these poor soldiers do not, or cannot, co-operate with the physician.”
The only structured rehabilitation provided to people with shell shock was at Craiglockhart, which closed within a year of beginning its pioneering work. The theoretical foundation was ergotherapy, which involves healing through activity. The psychiatrist, Dr. Arthur Brock, summed up his approach as follows: “If the essential thing for the patient to do is to help himself, the essential thing for the doctor to do—indeed, the only thing he can profitably do—is to help him to help himself.” This is based on the hypothesis that the individual has become detached from their circumstances and is hesitant to resume normal functioning. The person needs to be given a safe environment and activity so he can reconnect.
Rehabilitation: healthcare.
The seismic conceptual leap was recognising rehabilitation as a healthcare process that applied to everyone. In January 1918, Major John Todd wrote an article, The Meaning of Rehabilitation, in which he stated, “rehabilitation includes not only sailors and soldiers but the whole community.” To emphasise this, he added, “rehabilitation is a matter of such wide extent that it can leave no phase of social organisation untouched.” He described rehabilitation as follows: “The treatment received by disabled men includes all the devices that art and science can suggest.” There was no theoretical foundation; rehabilitation was pragmatic.
In the United States, as Colonel Frank Billing described in 1919, rehabilitation focused on an educational approach, with training for work tasks called occupational therapy.
Bird Baldwin, a psychologist at Walter Reed General Hospital, offered another perspective. He described a multidisciplinary team approach, emphasising function and returning to normal where possible. Neither gave any theoretical basis for the approach.
Thus, by 1920, there was consensus that rehabilitation was a healthcare concern relevant for all individuals with disease or damage affecting function. Furthermore, many of the features identified were those that describe effective rehabilitation. They included:
- Multidisciplinary teamwork.
- The importance of concentrating on meaningful and functional activities.
- The crucial need to consider psychological factors, including motivation.
- The use of educational approaches, including training at work tasks.
- A tailored approach encompassing a variety of interventions.
On the other hand, few, if any, of the activities involved had a solid theoretical foundation, apart from the short-lived service in Edinburgh for soldiers with shell shock. Secondly, rehabilitation was only considered for working-age individuals with conditions where some improvement was anticipated.
1920-1950. Early developments.
Rehabilitation immediately after the Great War included, in some places, many of the ideas later developed more formally. I will now review the early conceptual advances from 1920, beginning with the emergence of rehabilitation as a healthcare activity. I pause in 1950 to examine the revival of rehabilitation after the Second World War.
The 30 years 1920-1950 saw some rehabilitation developments, most related to services rather than concepts. They included:
- The emergence of a medical speciality of rehabilitation with professional specialist societies.
- The evolution of journals initially involved adding rehabilitation to existing journals and later developing specialist journals.
- Increasing numbers of other professions are becoming involved in rehabilitation.
Two significant conceptual developments occurred.
Holism.
In 1926, General Jan Smuts published his book Holism and Evolution. It was part philosophical and part related to the concept of evolution. Although it was not initially concerned with healthcare, the concept of holism has been widely applied in healthcare.
In the preface to the second edition of his book, General Jan Smuts refers to the vast societal changes that occurred as a result of the war. He says that holism “… underlies the synthetic tendency in the universe, and is the principle which makes for the origin and progress of wholes in the universe.” He writes later, “Holism is the term here coined for this fundamental factor operative towards the creation of wholes in the universe..”
Holism is closely related to another vital conceptual advance to be discussed later: the biopsychosocial model of illness.
Expert rehabilitation.
One striking advance occurred between 1935 and 1955: the management of people with spinal cord injuries improved significantly, allowing patients to achieve near-normal life expectancy and fully engage in society, including work. This advance happened without any theoretical basis. It arose from meticulous attention to detail, teaching patients to care for themselves, developing and utilising better technology, and employing a systematic approach. The vast improvement occurred despite no alteration in the person’s neurological function.
The critical concept that led to this transformation was that rehabilitation required structured processes involving an expert multi-professional team, obsessive attention to detail, and regular planning meetings.
Sadly, expert spinal cord injury rehabilitation progressed slowly over 20 years and was not accompanied by many scientific breakthroughs. It was never seen as proof of successful expert rehabilitation, and little research on its effectiveness was published. As a result, other rehabilitation services did not learn from it.
Only in 1997, when the Stroke Unit Trialists’ Collaboration finally demonstrated the extensive benefits of stroke rehabilitation unit care, did the importance of a systematic and structured approach become clear. They showed that “The most distinctive features seem to be those of organisation (coordinated multidisciplinary team care, nursing integration with multidisciplinary care, and involvement of carers in the rehabilitation process), specialisation (medical and nursing interest and expertise in stroke and rehabilitation), and education (education and training programmes for staff, patients, and carers).”
The key concept was to reframe rehabilitation away from being a treatment, like a drug, to being a complex intervention reliant on an expert team. This fundamental idea remains poorly understood. I have recently reinterpreted the observations to suggest that the unique expertise of rehabilitation is a cognitive skill, Rehabilitation Thinking.
1950-1980. System constructs
This period encompasses significant intellectual developments. I arbitrarily selected 1980 as a dividing point because the Society for Research in Rehabilitation, the only multi-professional rehabilitation organisation in the UK, was established in 1978. Furthermore, one of the first major randomised trials examining rehabilitation was published in 1981. It was at the forefront of a surge in rehabilitation research.
Systems Theory.
Systems have been studied since Ancient Greece, as Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the founder of General Systems Theory, outlined in an overview of his theory. Although general systems theory is difficult to read, its ideas have influenced many organisations and other developments. Many books on systems theory exist, such as Niklas Luhmann’s Introduction to Systems Theory.
Ideas from systems theory have influenced many academic disciplines, areas of research, and organisation. Several concepts discussed later incorporate aspects of systems theory. Other elements of rehabilitation can be traced back to the influence of systems theories. For example, Kielhofner’s Model of Human Occupation, widely used by occupational therapists, is based on it. It is now combined with the Intentional Relationship Model to form the MOHO-IRM.
For anyone interested in exploring this key concept further, Sara Green has examined the philosophical aspects of systems in Philosophy of Systems and Synthetic Biology; the text also addresses social and societal issues.
Complexity science.
Complexity science was a conceptual advance closely related to systems theory and developed around the same time. However, its impact on healthcare and rehabilitation was limited until about 2000.
The ideas apply directly to rehabilitation in two ways. First, as will be discussed later, the biopsychosocial model of illness shows that many different factors influence sickness and disability. Other factors may impact a factor’s effect and can also interact with each other. This results in unpredictable, often non-linear, and generally bidirectional relationships. These features define complexity.
Secondly, the rehabilitation process is also complex, with similar non-linear and interactive relationships between individual actions taken and between rehabilitation interventions and other aspects within the biopsychosocial model.
Thus, understanding complexity and its impact on the analysis and interpretation of observations and changes is crucial to rehabilitation practice.
The recognition of complexity led to the Medical Research Council developing guidance for developing and evaluating complex interventions in 2008, updated in 2021 in A new framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions: update of Medical Research Council guidance. This has enhanced the understanding of rehabilitation research and improved the design and reporting of rehabilitation studies, facilitating the increased research output observed.
Biopsychosocial model of illness.
An American Sociology and Public Health professor, Saad Nagi, introduced the key concept of the hierarchy of levels describing illness. In 1976, in an article titled ‘An Epidemiology of Disability among Adults in the United States’, he described the distinctions between pathology, impairment, and disability.
This publication was followed in 1977 by George Engel’s seminal work, The need for a new medical model: a challenge for biomedicine, in which he introduced the biopsychosocial model of illness and elaborated on the same theme as Saad Nagi.
This enormous advance was further expanded by the World Health Organisation, first in 1980 with the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps and, later in 2001, with the International Classification of Functioning. The latter added the crucial extra concept of a person’s environment or context.
This model was further refined by several people. In 2017, Peter Halligan and I published “The Biopsychosocial Model of Illness: A Model Whose Time Has Come,” which proposed a holistic version incorporating several additional ideas, such as acknowledging that a person’s choice is a legitimate component of any model and that time must be taken into account.
1980 – 2025
In the UK, the medical society dedicated to rehabilitation was established as the Medical Disability Society in 1984. The original British Association of Physical Medicine (1930s) had been combined with rheumatology for many years. The society is now known as the British Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The speciality of Rehabilitation Medicine was only recognised by the General Medical Council in 1997. Fortunately, research and the development of ideas continued.
Some of the ideas I am about to discuss were initially discussed when rehabilitation emerged in 1918 but their importance was only fully accepted many years later.
Teamwork.
Teamwork was implied in publications after the Great War (1914-18) and in 1943 by Harold Balme. In 1950, Helene Sensenich wrote “Team Work in Rehabilitation,” and by 1964, the need for teams across health and social services was considered obvious by Herman Hilleboe.
However, interest in teamwork increased from around 1990 onwards, following the findings of the systematic review of stroke unit trials. One ongoing debate concerns the type of team: multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary. I have discussed this issue in a blog post; there is no clear basis for arbitrary distinctions, and attention should be given to achieving effective teamwork.
In a chapter, A Teamwork Approach to Neurological Rehabilitation, I have also reviewed the characteristics of effective teams to guide the structure and functioning of rehabilitation teams. A Mind Map illustrating various aspects of teamwork can be reviewed and downloaded.
Further research into improving both the effectiveness and the efficiency of teams is essential. Furthermore, we can learn from research into teams in other areas, such as the military and businesses.
Motivation – goal setting.
The significance of motivation was acknowledged from 1918. One key development was Maslow’s proposal of five primary types of motivational needs in 1943. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been widely applied ever since, but they have not significantly influenced rehabilitation.
George Doran, who introduced the acronym SMART, recognised the importance of goal setting to increase motivation in business in 1981. At about the same time, goal setting was introduced to rehabilitation, and its importance was soon recognised. For example, Joanna McGrath and Alison Davis wrote, “Rehabilitation: Where Are We Going and How Do We Get There?”, which illustrated the importance of setting appropriate goals.
Goal setting has become a key part of rehabilitation, possibly overused, especially with the frequent use of goal-attainment scaling and SMART goals. While goal-attainment scaling can be a way to keep goals person-centred, evidence indicates that the focus on scaling is often misapplied, making it an unreliable method. Likewise, SMART goals may seem appealing, but I believe their drawbacks outweigh their benefits.
In summary, introducing the concept of goal setting was crucial for enhancing the quality and effectiveness of rehabilitation because it promotes a person-centred approach and helps motivate the individual. However, an excessive focus on being SMART and measuring the achievement of goals can significantly diminish its benefits.
Research should investigate whether the many roles of goal setting and rehabilitation planning should be disaggregated. Currently, goal planning meetings typically involve sharing information, agreeing on a formulation, discussing prognosis, identifying the person’s priorities, setting goals, coordinating team activities, and educating the person, their family, and other professionals.
Person-centred rehabilitation.
Goal setting relies on being person-centred. The term did not become part of the rehabilitation vocabulary until the mid-1990s; for instance, Julius Sim discussed Respect for Autonomy during neurological rehabilitation in 1998, and client-centred practice in occupational therapy was addressed in 1995. However, in a comprehensive review of 147 studies in 2022, Tiago Jesus and colleagues found that person-centred rehabilitation is difficult to implement.
However, the biopsychosocial model of illness requires assessment and rehabilitation planning to be person-centred; the evaluation must consider the individual in their context, including their narrative, and patients will only be fully motivated if the long-term goals are meaningful to them.
The main challenge associated with this concept is to ensure that the team manager and higher-level managers within the organisation are fully committed to a person-centred culture. I discussed this challenge in a post, A Model of Person-Centred Rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation is a process, not an action.
For most of my professional life, rehabilitation has been described as if it were a treatment that can be measured and where a relationship exists between the amount and the effect. This is not accurate. Rehabilitation has also often been conflated with therapy.
Therapy refers to the activity of a therapist, but therapists undertake numerous activities, such as arranging meetings, contacting other services, and conducting an initial assessment. Although most of these activities benefit the patient, they are not therapeutic activities involving the patients. Nevertheless, most people still use the term therapy to refer to the interaction between a therapist and the patients, where the therapist’s goal is to teach the person something, such as how to stand up from a chair or cook without forgetting to turn the cooker off.
The considerable challenge is to convince managers, policymakers, politicians, the public and most healthcare professionals that rehabilitation refers to a process with many components and that ‘therapy’ and other interventions are only part of rehabilitation. I emphasised this in my 2017 series of articles on Rehabilitation – a new approach.
This concept is particularly difficult to explain to people outside rehabilitation, because rehabilitation is so firmly embedded culturally and linguistically as a treatment.
Rehabilitation facilitates adaptation.
We are now at the end and linked back to the beginning. In 2023, I published the first General Theory of Rehabilitation. This theory draws on two concepts that have had little impact on rehabilitation so far:
- Adaptation, the natural reaction to change;
- Homeostasis, establishing and maintaining balance;
Both are processes. I have discussed adaptation briefly above and in more detail on another page where I consider adaptation and coping.
Homeostasis is a second universal and natural process that occurs in all living organisms. In this instance, the balance is between overarching motivating goals and progress toward achieving them. I have discussed homeostasis and the General Theory of Rehabilitation.
Recently, on 14 November 2025, I published a post on biopsychosocial disequilibrium where I explained that allostasis is a better term because it describes a system-level, adaptive control mechanism.
The value and consequences of my ideas in the General Theory of Rehabilitation cannot yet be fully assessed; it will take approximately 10 years to evaluate them. However, I have found it invaluable when considering and discussing clinical issues.
Conclusion
The method employed by Neil MacGregor to explore world history is artificial, and the selection of objects is inevitably subject to debate. However, he segmented history into manageable portions, was engaging, and captured the spirit of each object’s time period, highlighting connections that might have been overlooked. My overview is brief in comparison, but I hope to have demonstrated that a consistent theme of rehabilitation has emerged, and that while many ideas existed from the beginning, most only gained recognition later. Additionally, I have highlighted ideas that are not yet fully developed, where further focus could enhance their practice. Like Neil MacGregor, my choice of concepts is personal and clearly reflects ideas I am interested in.