THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL MODELS OF DISABILITY by MIKE OLIVER, B.A. PhD. / READER IN DISABILITY STUDIES, THAMES POLYTECHNIC; Paper presented at Joint Workshop of the Living Options Group and the Research Unit of the Royal College of Physicians

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper I have suggested that the medicalisation of disability is inappropriate because it locates the problems of disability in the wrong place; within the individual rather than in society. Further, once the true nature of the problems of disability are identified, it becomes clear that doctors neither have the skills nor the training to deal with them.

Doctors and disabled people therefore, are both trapped in a set of unsatisfactory social relationships. The only escape for all concerned is to jointly work on the problems of disability within the parameters of the social model, which, while it does not guarantee a cure, nevertheless offers the possibility of developing a more fruitful relationship between doctors and disabled people.

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http://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/Oliver/in%20soc%20dis.pdf

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