Marian replied to my original posting on the boundries of the social model
and raised two questions. The first concerned how abuse of the medical
paradigm can be avoided and the second asked how the medical view cannot be
privileged when there are realistic alternatives available.
I do not know enough about ME and the Deaf community that I work with
occasionally haven't agreed amongst themselves about about the effects either
on individuals or the community of the use of cochlear implants so I can't
comment of the specifics.
I also suggested that 'unless' you can develop a single model that is
reflective of changes in society it will not be owned by the majority of
disabled people. The use of the unless word was a cop out, I admit, I don't
know how to develop such a single model but it wouod be unfair to leave it at
that. I am also aware that long submissions to the list don't help anyone so
if you want to tell me that I'm talking rubbish please feel free to do so off
list
For an optemist I am quite pesimistic. I cannot see a time when the risk of
the medical model will not be abused. Until Disabled People have access to
the same levels of training to have an understanding of the issues we have to
trust the medical profession. We may not like it but that is how it is. Where
people have gained the knowledge to be able to make choices, eg in treatments
for HIV/AIDS, the range of options has increased and people feel more
confident about challenging the medical establishment. If the social and
medical models are used primarily as tools to explain the relationship of
disability to the world we live in maybe the new model has to include the
shifting of the responsibility for information sharing in an open and honest
way so that choices can be made. There is then also a case for service
providers to adopt this type of approach and be proactive in making
sufficiently detailed information available. This would also help to reduce
the privileged existance of the medical profession which was the second
concern raised.
The one thing that I don't know how to adress is the need to convince
parents, professionals etc. about how to accept that being disabled is OK and
that you don't have to fix everything in an attempt to be as normal as
possible. This, again, could be helped by making realistic information
available. But I'll keep thinking about that one.
Paul
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