Acquired disability is difficult for an individual to accept.

Discuss

Introduction

There are many different kinds of disability and they can result from accidents, illness or genetic
disorders. A disability may affect mobility, ability to learn things, or ability to communicate
easily, and some people may have more than one. A disability may be visible or hidden, may be
permanent or temporary and may have minimal or substantial impact on a person’s abilities. In
addition, although some people are born with disability, many people acquire disability.
An acquired disability pertaining to a characteristic, condition, or disease originating after birth,
not caused by hereditary or developmental factors but by a reaction to environmental influences
outside of the organism, example(s), acquired immunity (and trauma) can be difficult for an
individual to accept.

Key Terms: Disability, acquired, acceptance

According to Wright (1960), the acceptance of disability means that, while the disability may be
considered an inconvenience and restrictive, the individual regards the disability as non
devaluative. An acquired disability occurs after birth. It can be caused by an accident/incident
causing injury, or illness. As for specific examples that could be any disability be it physical,
mental, neurological among others. For example, a person may acquire a disability through a
workplace incident, stroke or car accident. There is no definitive list of acquired disabilities, and
they can be visible and invisible. Examples of acquired disability issues include: Accident related
injuries: head trauma, spinal injuries, loss of vision, loss of hearing, injured / loss of limbs.
Fatigue, chronic pain, mobility disability etc from chronic autoimmune disease, such as
ankylosing spondylitis, vision impairment after injury to the eyes, inability to work or take care
of oneself due to severe mental illness, communication difficulty due to a stammer that
developed later in life, mobility difficulties, and difficulty performing everyday tasks due to
weakness/lack of motor control caused by an illness such as Parkinson's, arthritis, continence
caused by medical error, a result of surgery, impeded ability to learn, comprehend, remember,
communicate etc due to brain injury or conditions such as Alzheimer's or dementia, tremors in
the hands making it impossible to perform anything with the hands due to an acquired
neurological condition, permanent result of a severe reaction to a medicine and paralysis
resulting from medical error, illness, accident among others.
There are many different reactions to acquiring disability. In many cases the person has
experienced a very significant injury or illness and there is a period of initial joy that they were
able to survive. After this initial period of elation, then a period of great reflection and often
sadness can occur. For both the person who has acquired the disability as well as their family and
friends, thoughts move toward the many changes to their life being experienced. Such changes
result in loss, each of which needs to be identified and processed. Life changes from acquired
disability can lead to feelings of helplessness, loss of hope and frustration at the reduced life
options available. 

It is generally acknowledged that people with acquired disabilities find it hard to accept their
new state, often considering their future life as meaningless, regarding themselves as a burden
for the closest ones or struggling to face numerous challenges of day-to-day functioning.
Additionally, social environment and significant others tend to reinforce the belief that
individuals with disability seem worse, dependent or unable to function normally. The autonomy
and independence of people with disabilities is oftentimes highly limited and any isolation from
daily life and its problems makes it virtually impossible for any person to remain a self-sufficient
and independent individual (Shah & Giannasi, 2015).

Acquiring disability results in many people struggling to cope with the magnitude of life
changes. After acquiring disability, many people have been through a long and challenging
process of rehabilitation. Many have therefore not been able to retain their prior work or study
commitments, and some may be informed that their prior work is no longer possible for
them. With respect to the self, disability disturbs the sense of identity, autonomy and continuity.
Separate Selves from before and after the accident are created (Oullette & Gough, 2002). The
entire process of identity reconstruction or finding new life goals proves to be difficult, complex
and long-lasting.

Accidents or diseases which result in disability bring a completely new dimension to the existing
conditions of life. The person affected suddenly becomes heavily dependent on others, often
unable to live independently thus experiencing lack of autonomy and integrity (Brzezińska,
2006). Situations of this kind test individual’s resources, social environment to which they
belong, institutions, and above all, the significant others. Other factors determining the process
of adaptation to the new conditions include: type of disability, age at which disability occurs,
impact on daily functioning or childhood experiences. Additionally, one cannot dismiss such
aspects as: conditions of adaptation to chronic illnesses, levels of stress, anxiety or depression,
support for the chronically ill or the quality of patient’s life.

Stigmatization in acquired disability makes it difficult to accept for individuals. Acquired

disability can be perceived as being caused by controllable behaviors, whereas congenital
disability is unlikely to be perceived as controllable by the person with the condition. Indeed,
people frequently ask individuals with disabilities intrusive questions about the cause of their
condition (Olkin, 1999). For example, an observer encountering someone who became disabled
from a bicycle accident may ask if the person was wearing a helmet. If the cyclist had not been
wearing a helmet, the observer can udge the disability as controllable, blame the cyclist for being
careless, and simultaneously assure him/herself that such a thing could never happen to
him/herself (“I am careful!”). Such disability avoidance blame protects against disability
acquisition threat (Dunn, 2015). Olkin (1999) theorized that people with acquired disability,
whose conditions could be perceived as more controllable and more personally threatening,
would be more easily blamed for their disability and would consequently be more stigmatized
than people with congenital disability.

Controllability attributions about stigmatized identities elicit specific attitude components (i.e.,
cognitions, emotions, behaviors). When people believe a condition is controllable, they are
consequently more likely to believe the person is to blame, which elicits a variety of stigmatizing
responses, including feelings of anger and less sympathy toward the person, leading them to
distance themselves from the person and be unlikely to help them (Cross, & Else-Quest, 2016).
This then leads the person with acquired disability to find it difficult to accept the diability.

People with disabilities often perceive themselves differently than they are perceived by others in
society. Other people define their roles and relations in society completely differently (than the
disabled do themselves), attributing them a particular identity. Disability becomes the central
category which is the main feature defining the social identity of those people. The discrepancies
between the transactional identity and the real one of the individual interferes with interactions,
constitutes the space of stigmatization where the marking is possible. 

A disabled person with acquired disability must manage to cope with social identity, reconstruct
their identity and construct own biography from scratch. People with inborn disability create
their identity of a disabled person from the beginning. They are educated to play a role of a
person with disabilities in society. The stigma of disability remains with a disabled person
forever. Individuals with an acquired disability may first have to go through a process of
accepting their new identity. Acquiring a physical impairment inevitably serves as a biographical
disruption. Not only does this experience entail physical, psychological, and economic
challenges, but it also introduces a potential discontinuity in one's identity, rendering the person
a member of a social minority group with which they had not previously been associated: people
with disabilities. This change of social identity can make acquired disability challenging to
accept.

In many cases, before acquiring a disability, individuals have already internalized societal stigma
about disability as an undesirable outgroup, and they suddenly find themselves members of this
group (Smart, 2008). Because of these pre-existing beliefs about disability, individuals with
acquired disabilities might be more resistant to developing a disability identity. Completing tasks
may seem more natural and innate to people with congenital disabilities because they have
always done them that way, fostering a confidence in ability that may not be as strong in those
who must relearn how to do things that are more challenging than they used to be. People with
acquired disabilities frequently report feeling a profound sense of loss of identity (Smart, 2008)

Wright (1960) suggested the following four value changes in disability acceptance. First, the
expansion of the scope of value meant that PWDs realized many existing values, despite losing
something important as a result of injury. Second, the containment of the effects of disability
allowed the individual to understand that disability did not define all of his or her abilities or
values, even though some were damaged. Third, subordination of physique meant that the
individual recognized the importance of his or her inner value and positive attributes, such as
kindness, wisdom, endeavor, and cooperativeness, even though he or she may have an inferiority
complex resulting from paralyzed and deformed limbs or damage to his or her physical
appearance. Fourth, transformation from comparative values to asset values meant that the
individual focused on his or her own value without making comparisons to general standards or
other people.

In conclusion the onset of disabling illness or physical or sensory impairment is often

accompanied by complicated grief processes, including depression and posttraumatic stress
disorder. These grief processes are frequently developed in response to the concurrent losses
people may experience when living with new abilities. Most obviously, people who acquire a
disability or disabling disease lose a part of their bodies and/or the functionality of parts of their
bodies. Additionally, they may lose physical comfort, vigor, mobility, spontaneity, the ability to
engage in certain activities, aspects of their previous lifestyles, privacy, a sense of dignity, a
sense of control, a sense of efficacy/agency, a degree of independence, actual or perceived life
roles, friends and other social supports, the ability to work, financial stability, their previous
sense of identity and purpose, the ability to pursue previously established dreams, their previous
body image, and, all in all, their previous sense of self as a whole.
References

Brzezińska, A. (2006). Childhood and adolescence: the roots of personal and social identity. (pp.
47–77). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Dunn, D. (2015). Social psychology of disability. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

Olkin, R. (1999). What psychotherapists should know about disability. New York, NY: The
Guilford Press.

Shah, R., & Giannasi, P. (2015). Tackling Disability Discrimination and Disability Hate Crime:
A Multidisciplinary Guide. London.

Smart, J. (2008). Disability, society, and the individual (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed

Wright, B. A. (1983). Physical disability: A psychosocial approach. New York, NY: Harper &
Row