From the Walls of the City: Disabilities as Culture

Abstract

Invites pastoral professionals to consider the disabled as a cross-cultural population who faces a crisis while searching for meaning in a larger culture that finds meaning in beauty, power, freedom from strife, and physical and emotional wholeness. Argues that the disabled merit the same informed and specific study as other persons who are “different.” Urges pastoral professionals to examine what they know about disabilities and discusses the unconscious, unchallenged myths about the disabled and treatment implications of considering disability as culture.