Disability

I support your position. Disability is not simply the physical experience of loss of function, illness, and pain...it is the complex psychosocial experience of being denied access to full community inclusion. Mental illness and the recovery movement are the best example we have to explain this issue. The medical model, the one that puts disability in a health forum, has been the unquestioned worldview that kept people segregated, stigmatized, and permanently in "sick" role...when people with mental illness and their families stood up to these disempowering assumptions and took control of their lives through collective, community action, they created new ways to live in wellness, i.e. Peer counseling, support networks, and supported employment. As a result, people with mental illness now live in communities rather than institutions,they have jobs rather than supervised therapy, they have families rather than orderlies.

So, yes, the advocacy of asking for a place in a political forum rather than the health forum may not seem like a big deal...but it is. I say it's time to open that door.