1st Edition

Women With Disabilities Found Voices

By Mary Willmuth, Lillian Holcomb Copyright 1993
    222 Pages
    by Routledge

    222 Pages
    by Routledge

    Here is a powerful stimulus for thought, discussion, and coalition building in the area of women and disability. This innovative book was written by women with disabilities and women professionals who work with persons with disabilities. Women With Disabilities covers many concerns about life with a disability and issues related to disability and psychotherapy.

    The authors represent a variety of disabilities, ethnicities, sexualities, and politics. This diversity of experience and perspective forces readers to grapple with contradictions, paradox, and their own preconceptions about disabilities and women. These women writers reveal, in deeply personal, closely technical, and sometimes theoretical terms, how they have coped with the contradictions of being women, of being members of varied colors and classes, and having bodies that don’t “fit.”

    Women With Disabilities provides a wealth of information for psychologists, social workers, feminist therapists, and counselors working in rehabilitation, vocational rehabilitation, and mental health. It covers a variety of subjects, including transference and countertransference, spinal cord injury, visual impairment, and chronic illness. Some specific topics covered include:

    • therapy issues for therapists working with women with disabilities
    • parenthood and disability
    • use of assistive technology by women with disabilities
    • sexual exploitation of women with disabilities
    • women’s responses to disability at different points in the life cycle

      Readers will be fascinated by the illuminating depth and breadth of experience expressed by the authors. Voices of rebellion, activism, and resistance sparkle across these pages. Women With Disabilities is an invitation for theoretical, therapeutic, and political coalition building to those with--and without--disabilities.

    Chapter 1 Introduction, Michelle Fine; Chapter 2 The Celebration of the Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Patricia Ranzoni; Chapter 3 Coming Out in Voices, Hershey Laura; Chapter 4 Survival, Michelle Fine; Chapter 5 Double Bind Messages: The Effects of Attitude Towards Disability on Therapy, Geri Esten, Lynn Willmott; Chapter 6 The Prize: Disability, Parenthood, and Adoption, Jane Zirinsky-Wyatt; Chapter 7 Women Who Are Visually Impaired or Blind as Psychotherapy Clients: A Personal and Professional Perspective, Mary Harsh; Chapter 8 The Common Agenda Between Old Women, Women with Disabilities and All Women, Shevy Healey; Chapter 9 Looking Through the Mirror of Disability: Transference and Countertransference Issues with Therapists Who Are Disabled, Alison G. Freeman; Chapter 10 Women and Physical Distinction: A Review of the Literature and Suggestions for Intervention, Sondra E. Solomon; Chapter 11 An Account of the Search of a Woman Who Is Verbally Impaired for Augmentative Devices to End Her Silence, Lisa Fay; Chapter 12 What We Know About Women’s Technology Use, Avoidance, and Abandonment, Marcia J. Scherer; Chapter 13 An Open Letter to Health and Mental Health Care Professionals from a Survivor of Sexual Exploitation, Martha E. Sheldon; Chapter 14 Sexually Abused Women with Mental Retardation: Hidden Victims, Absent Resources, Michelle Fine; Chapter 15 Further Labeling Within the Category of Disability Due to Chemical Dependency: Borderline Personality Disorder, Gloria J. Hamilton; Chapter 16 Another Strand of Our Diversity: Some Thoughts from a Feminist Therapist with Severe Chronic Illness, Jessica M. Barshay; Chapter 17 Environmental Illness/Multiple Chemical Sensitivities: Invisible Disabilities, Pamela Reed Gibson; Chapter 18 Disability in Female Immigrants with Ritually Inflicted Genital Mutilation, Hanny Lightfoot-Klein; Chapter 19 Found Voices: Women, Disability and Cultural Transformation, Deborah Lisi; Chapter 20 SURVIVING SALEM with a movement disorder and several witches’ tits, Patricia Ranzoni;

    Biography

    Mary E. Willmuth, Lillian Holcomb