Reclaiming the whole: Self, spirit, and society

Science, bureaucracy and organized religion have played an important role in shaping the construction of disability--as the broken, incomplete and imperfect self, as the case requiring management, and as the object of pity and charity. This paper looks critically at the way in which concepts such as the medical model of disability and the evolving genetic model of disability have shaped the way in which we construct disability and, consequently, the way in which we treat people with disability--through isolation, segregation and elimination. These constructions of disability also operate to define and confine the spiritual journey of people with disability. The author argues for a more integrated conception of self, based not upon an empirical, mechanized and bureaucratic world-view, but upon an integrated, interdependent and holistic view of self and society.