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8: Transcending: Disability as Growth Experience

DOI:

10.1891/9780826197597.0008

Abstract

Acceptance of disability, for most people, evolves gradually over a span of years filled with instructive experience. This chapter pursues the lifelong process of acknowledging disability, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually, further than usually is done, beyond the range of normalization to higher levels of self-actualization that are fostered by the disability experience. Different variants of denial are evident in the shock, expectancy of recovery, and defense stages. Nancy Kerr’s stages of adjustment to disability are a model of psychological development focused on a particular segment of the population in a limited aspect of their lives. The continuity of the rehabilitation process of disabled people with the human development of people in general is stressed. As a result of the spiritual renascence taking place in current times, more and more people are coming to value and seek the transcendence of lower consciousness, and this includes increasing numbers of disabled people.