Trauma, Disability, and Social Isolation

Reblogged from Trauma, Violence, and Human Rights:

Robert E. Murphy describes his own experience with social isolation after becoming a paraplegic in this selection, titled, “The Damaged Self.” He uses words like “stranger,” “aliens,” and “exiles,” to describe a new condition of being in the world. There is much trauma attached to disability. Murphy describes an “us vs. them” mentality when he speaks of being “one of ‘them’… somewhat apart from American culture, making in many ways a stranger” (Murphy, pg. 323, 329). Disability and low self-esteem …

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