How might psychotherapy improve its service to disabled people and people with physical impairment?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers how psychotherapy might better serve disabled people and people with physical impairment. Psychotherapy stands accused of making things worse for people living with physical impairment. Exploration of the articulation by Freud and Lacan of the emergence of subjectivity reveals the reason for the distrust of the disability studies community. However, a call has been made for psychotherapy to reflect, reform and be of service. Aspects of psychotherapeutic philosophy stand ready to offer a meaningful response; phenomenology as elucidated by Heidegger, Levinas’ notions of alterity and the primacy of the other, and the unravelling of meta-narratives provided by post-modernism and post-structuralism. These aspects, together with the will to self-critique, offer a way of working that moves to an appropriate respect and service from psychotherapy for disabled people.