Responses of the Occupational Therapy Profession to the Perspective of the Disability Movement, Part 1

Abstract

Since the 1960s, people with disabilities have been developing their own perspective on what it means to be disabled. At the vanguard of this development was the independent living movement which, with other organisations of disabled people, identified disabled people as a group experiencing a particular oppression, disabled by social processes and handicapped by society's lack of commitment to the creation of enabling environments. Part 1 of this article examines the genesis and development of the disability movement. The ideas and analysis that the disability movement has generated and its critique of the medical model of disability are outlined, and its impact — both ideological and legislative — is reviewed. The changing professional philosophy of occupational therapy is described and the impact on it of changing social values is assessed. Part 2 will review the explicit responses of the occupational therapy profession to the disability movement. The validity of the social model of disability for occupational therapy interventions will be considered and an analysis will be presented of the implications for the profession's philosophy and practice of the adoption of the social model of disability in appropriate areas of practice.