What Psychotherapists Should Know About Disability

This comprehensive volume provides the knowledge and skills that mental health professionals need for more effective, informed work with clients with disabilities. Combining her extensive knowledge as a clinician, researcher, and teacher with her personal experience as someone with a disability, Olkin provides an insider's perspective on critical issues that are often overlooked in training. A lucid conceptual framework is presented for understanding disability as a minority experience, one that is structured by social, legal, and attitudinal constraints as well as physical challenges. Illuminating frequently encountered psychosocial themes and concerns, chapters describe a range of approaches to dealing with disability issues in the treatment of adults, children, and families. Topics addressed include etiquette with clients with disabilities; special concerns in assessment, evaluation, and diagnosis; the impact of disability on sexuality and romance, as well as pregnancy, birthing, and parenting; the use of assistive technology and devices; disability and substance abuse; and more. Filled with clinical examples and observations, the volume also discusses strategies for enhancing teaching, training, and research.

Rhoda Olkin, PhD, is a professor in the clinical psychology program at the California School of Professional Psychology in Alameda, California. She is also on the staff of Through the Looking Glass in Berkeley, California, an agency serving families with disabilities, and the National Resource Center for Parents with Disabilities. She has experience in disability from the perspective of an administrator (she founded handicapped services at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the mid-1970s, and is currently the Faculty Advisor to Students with Disabilities at the California School of Professional Psychology), researcher, clinician, teacher, and spouse (of a man with multiple sclerosis), as well as personal experience (she had polio in 1954). Her short stories have been published in literary magazines, and her most recent story on a disability theme appears in Bigger Than the Sky: Disabled Women on Parenting. Her two children can spot ramps and handicapped parking with the best of them.