A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

Chapter 1: Disability, Self and Identity
The medical model as ideology
In that it distorts our perceptions of humanity and relationships between human individuals,
Micheline Mason identifies the influence of the medical model of disability as having a role
in the oppression of all people, both disabled and non-disabled. The removal of people
identified as having significant impairments from the mainstream of social life, as well as
being oppressive to people with impairments themselves, has rendered impairment a subject
of fear and embarrassment that non-disabled people feel unsure about and uncomfortable
dealing with (Rieser and Mason, 1992:78). Through a process involving the medicalisation
of society (Zola, 2005:51), forms of social knowledge have been imposed which suggest that
aberration from socially valued norms of physical embodiment is exceptional rather than an
ordinary part of human experience and is best addressed by professionals. Individualising
professional practices remove people with impairments from their social contexts and
communicate a number of related propositions:
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You are deficient.
You are the problem.
I, the professionalised servicer, am the answer.
You are not the answer.
Your peers are not the answer.
The political, social and economic environment is not the answer.
(McKnight, J. 2005)
A message is communicated to those identified as unimpaired that disability is an individual
problem, but not their problem. When impairment is removed from sight, it becomes an
object of pity, of comedy, of charity, of fear or hostility, to be dealt with by others elsewhere.
Normality is highly prized. The „normal‟ person, described by Erich Fromm as „the person
who is able to fulfil the social role he has been given and to work in the fashion that
contemporary society requires of him‟ (Fromm, 2001:119), is allowed to escape the angst of
being reminded of his own vulnerability and temporality that encounter with people with
impairments on a regular basis would involve. This is covered over by the daily routine of
his activities, by the assurance and approval he finds in his private or social relations, by
success in business, by any number of distractions, by „having fun‟, „making contacts‟,
„going places‟ (Fromm, 2001:115).
As Roger Silverstone comments: