EQUALITY, FREEDOM, AND/OR JUSTICE FOR ALL: A RESPONSE TO MARTHA NUSSBAUM

Abstract: This essay is a reply to Martha Nussbaum's "Capabilities and Disabilities." It endorses Nussbaum's critique of the social-contract tradition and proposes that it might be productively contrasted with Michael Walzer's critique of John Rawls in Spheres of Justice . It notes that Nussbaum's emphasis on surrogacy and guardianship with regard to people with severe and profound cognitive disabilities poses a challenge to disability studies, insofar as the field tends to emphasize the self-representation of people with disabilities and to concentrate primarily on the aesthetic and political representation of physical disability. The essay concludes with an account of a recent exchange with Peter Singer on the question of our social expectations of people with Down syndrome.     

COGNITIVE DISABILITY AND COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT

Abstract: This essay explores problems of consistency among commonsense beliefs about the comparative moral status of animals, fetuses, and human beings congenitally endowed with cognitive capacities and potential no higher than those of higher animals. The possibility of genetic cognitive enhancement exacerbates some of these problems, but also offers new resources for understanding the basis of our moral status as inviolable.     

Constructions and Reconstructions: Latino Parents' Values for Children

There is a fair amount of support for the premise that parents construct their child-related values from the ethnic cultural models that are available to them. There are also indications that personal experiences play a role in the construction of values. However, this latter influence has not been well-researched. We reconstructed the child-related values of a sample of Mexican American and Puerto Rican parents of young children with disability to describe parent-held values and to examine the extent to which having a child with a disability impacted on these values. Analysis of parental ratings and of their narratives indicated substantial consistency across gender, civil status, and country of origin. Disability appeared to have a small and diffused impact on the values. Ratings differed significantly on the basis of the language of interview, and the definitions that parents offered also showed an effect of interaction with the Anglo American culture. However, an in-depth examination of these differences indicated that they were mostly restricted to labeling. The basic values of parents remained fairly consistent. This finding has substantial implications for research and practice. Equivalence of meaning should not be assumed across populations.     

On Christ and Healing: Eiesland,Tillich, and Disability Theology

Abstract : The existentialist interpretation of the biblical texts offered by Protestant theologian Paul Tillich is deeply problematic in its treatment of disability, especially mental illness. Theologian Nancy Eiesland argues against a conflation of sin and illness, and proposes the symbol of the disabled God as a source for a liberation theology of disability. Reading the biblical texts existentially, as Tillich suggests, can advance Eiesland's Christology, while her critique of Christian teaching on disability offers a correction for Tillich.     

Invoking Deep Access: Disability beyond Inclusion in the Church

Abstract : This article seeks to challenge the ways access and inclusion are thought about and practiced in church communities with the hope of encouraging a robust hospitality and deep accessibility among all in the body of Christ. A first step stresses the difference of disability over the sameness of human personhood underneath it. A second step considers possibilities for practices of receiving gifts from one another in ongoing gestures of vulnerable mutuality that negotiate access for all, and thereby create community. The article concludes by proposing this be cultivated by a spirituality of attentiveness that embodies hospitality.     

Academic Capitalism as a Key Challenge and the Emergence of the New Economy Scenario

What are the evolutionary scenarios of academic capitalism, able to deliver an ever more strategic knowledge, with a high added value within the global society? Under the current system of knowledge economy, characterized, at the beginning of this third millennium, by strong hyper-complexity, the challenge for the society evolution toward a sustainable world, full of varieties and opportunities, is the development of a form of capitalism able to guide and facilitate the reshaping of society through self-organizing systems (Lazslo 2011 Lazslo, E. 2011. “Prefazione”. In Teoria sistemica e complessità morfogenetica del capitalismo, Edited by: Pitasi, A. Rome: Aracne.  [Google Scholar]) the academic capitalism as a form of functional capitalism, the difference that makes the knowledge considered at a systemic level.     

Anger - the hidden destroyer A psychodynamic approach with the physically disabled

Abstract

A basic challenge in the psychodynamic counselling of the physically disabled is the engagement of anger in relation to the patient's disability. Regardless of a patient's age at the onset of disability, they will exhibit anger, resentment and frustration for losses they may have, or perceive themselves to have, endured. Healthy physical and psychological adaptation requires the disabled patient to ‘cope’ with their anger. Feelings of anger may impede, obstruct or even derail the impetus towards healthy psychological and behavioural functioning. The manner in which we learn to negotiate the vicissitudes of daily life is linked to our selfobject development. This development does not end when we become adolescents or young adults, but continues throughout our life span. The normative, healthy psychological maturation required for adaptive behaviour is vulnerable to a wide range of impediments acquired at any point along the individual's developmental continuum. As clinicians we need to keep in mind that the self-regulation of internalized emotional states is transacted through a complex set of characterological and personality traits that may be impaired, or wanting, eventually leading to maladjusted psychopathological states. The therapeutic function of the clinician is to redress those ego deficits that stand in the way of a fully creative and productive life. The intended aim of this paper is to illustrate the manner in which I engage with those physically disabled persons presenting anger. I shall consider the use of counter-transference responses as behavioural in modifying various forms of anger formation manifested by disabled clients. It is my position that a positive shift in a disabled person's ego ideal through empathic transference will help to alleviate their underlying hostility and other forms of anger. The paper commences with a brief review of the experience of the disabled in Western society. I shall then turn to an examination of the psychotherapeutic approach underpinning my work with disabled clients. The third section will describe and illustrate, through case material, the clinician's use of self in the dyadic transaction with disabled clients.

The power of a positive therapeutic outcome lies in the clinician's ability to engage with the client despite emotional content, clinical aptitude or specific approach. Empathic attunement brings into operation those mechanisms underpinning the dynamic process integral to the approach used in the above cases. Countertransference issues sometimes intervene in the unconstrained flow of therapy. Regardless, those issues that are salient to the client and are incorrectly handled by the clinician will appear recurrently until satisfactorily addressed. Further, even when errors are made in sessions, outcomes may be positive.

Whatever the initial purpose that brings a physically disabled person to therapy there will eventually be a need to address issues around their condition. It is not enough to ignore or accept a client's earliest statement that their disability Ms not a problem'. They may initially not have come into therapy for problems concerning their disability; however, the particular disability will ultimately play an important role as to how and what the person feels, thinks and believes about him or herself. In general, psychodynamic counselling with the physically disabled requires knowledge of disability issues as well as of counselling procedures. Those working with the disabled need to understand their own personal issues through analytic work and continued supervision. Working with the physically disabled can be overwhelming, frustrating and exhausting, but in the end is most rewarding.     

Social Workers' Intervention Preferences in Cases of Parental Violence Toward Intellectually Disabled Children

Children with intellectual disabilities are at risk of being abused by family members. This study sought to identify factors influencing the intervention decisions of social workers. Fifty-nine social workers employed at welfare services participated in the study. The study used a factorial survey design describing a violent interaction between a child with intellectual disability and a parent. Professional characteristics of the workers as well as personal attitudinal characteristics had no significant effect on the preference of intervention mode. However, levels of child and parental aggression presented in the vignettes did influence the preferred intervention. Child's challenging behavior plays an important and increasing role in preferences for more intrusive and authoritative interventions, even after controlling for parental aggression.