Disability has been codified over various historical periods through the presentation of more or less relevant perspectives. We are talking about the medical, social, and biopsychosocial models . These are the models most widely considered when discussing people with disabilities. Other models include, for example, the cultural, identity, human rights, religious, charitable, economic, and finally the limitations model. We will focus on the first three.

Models of disability: the medical model

The medical model , born in the mid-nineteenth century, considers disability as a strictly medical condition , caused by an illness , an injury , or a physical or mental defect . In other words, disability is seen as a deviation from the biological and medical norm, or rather, a deficiency that must be compensated for. It is an individual problem, a personal tragedy.

It therefore focuses on the medicalization of the disabled person, that is, it advocates for a cure and seeks to find ways to conceive and "adjust and/or adapt" the body or mind of the disabled person so that they can be as normal as possible (from rehabilitation to forms of financial and welfare support). The disabled person lacks decision-making power because decisions about their lives were delegated to medical professionals.

The medical model is based on a dichotomous view of reality – disability and normality – and on an abstract conceptualization of what a human being should be.

Models of disability: the social model

The social model , born in the 70s but structuring itself in the early 80s, considers disability a "form of social oppression," meaning "society disables people with physical impairments" through physical, cultural, social, and behavioral barriers. These barriers constitute " disability ," which in Italian can be translated as disabling or incapacitating. This model was born in response to the medical model ; disability is no longer an individual fact but a collective one that affects the entire society in which the person with a disability lives, therefore it is a social phenomenon.

This model is not intended to oppose the medical model, nor does it aim to discredit the work done by doctors in rehabilitation nor the contribution that medical science has made and can make to improving the lives of people with disabilities.
Above all, it does not forget the individual and pathological condition of the person but Rather, it chooses to focus attention on issues that are shared by many individuals (i.e. the condition of social oppression) that can be used at the level of political struggle.

People are disabled by society because of the way it is conceived and structured and the way it excludes them by depriving them of the ability or possibility to perform certain daily and social activities.

The basics of the model

The basis of this model can be traced back to a 1966 article ( A critical condition , see link 1 at the bottom) written by Paul Hunt , a writer and activist with a motor disability, where he states that disabled people pose a challenge to the values ​​of Western society and interpreted disability as a series of constraints imposed on the person by a restrictive social organization.

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The pioneer of the social model of disability is Vic Finkelstein , a clinical psychologist and Marxist-Trotskyist activist with disabilities. In an article (see link 2 below), he questioned the medical model and outlined the characteristics of the social model. The model's organic unity, however, is due to Mike Oliver , an activist and university professor with disabilities.

Models of disability: the biopsychosocial model

The biopsychosocial model , born in the late 70s, considers disability to be the result of a combination of biological factors , such as illness or injury, psychological factors, such as depression or anxiety, and social factors , such as discrimination or social exclusion. A person with a disability is not only an individual with specific impairments that prevent them from carrying out activities, but also an individual who lives in a cultural context that allows or prevents them from enjoying a certain level of social inclusion.

One application tool is the 2001 ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health), which considers the individual in all its various aspects: biological, psychological, socio-relational, and environmental. This model combines the two previous models to consider the biological, psychological, and social variables implicated in health and disease processes. Disability is considered one of the variations in human functioning.

The biopsychosocial model, formulated by the psychiatrist George Engel, derives from the systems theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy ,

These three models allow us to analyze, each from its own perspective, the disability or the factors that disable, through the social context in which they are immersed, the person who has some uncommon condition: whether physical, sensorial or intellectual; it is certain that more conditions can coexist in the same person.

Simone Bellan

References

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