1st Edition

Disability Controversial Debates and Psychosocial Perspectives

By Deborah Marks Copyright 1999
    236 Pages
    by Routledge

    234 Pages
    by Routledge

    Deborah Marks examines current theories and practices relating to disability. The focus of the work is not disabled people as 'objects' of study but rather an analysis of disability as it has been historically and culturally constructed and psychically experienced. The chapters cover:
    * language and discourse
    * the disabled people's movement
    * the 'disability' professions
    * public policy
    * unconscious investments and interpersonal relationships
    * knowledge and the politics of disability.

    This text will be essential reading for students on the growing number of Disability Studies courses, as well as students, policy-makers and professionals in social policy, social work, cultural studies and nursing.

    Introduction; Chapter 1 Interdisciplinary studies, fragmented identities and psychic investments; Chapter 2 Valuing lives; Chapter 3 Medicine and its allied professions; Chapter 4 The social construction of disability; Chapter 5 Dynamics of care and control; Chapter 6 Causes, complexity and process of categorising ‘impairment’; Chapter 7 Does language disable people?; Chapter 8 Investments in images; Chapter 9 Closing comments;

    Biography

    Deborah Marks is course director of the MA in Disability Studies at the Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield.

    'This book is a welcome contribution to the field of critical writing on disability and disablement. It is sharp and insightful and challenging in its scope.' - Edge Hill University College

    'Her work is incisive, succinct and very readable, providing an excellent and insightful grounding in central issues to readers new to the discipline, as well as those more aquainted with the issues at hand ... the appearence of this book decisively ushers in a new era in the development of critical disability studies.' - Brian Watermeyer, Psychoanalytic Studies