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L’identità personale nella disabilità: Le configurazioni dell’identità sessuale profonda in soggetti con disabilità mentale. [The Disability Personal Identity: The configuration of the deep sexual identity in subjects with mental disability]

Authors:
  • University of Perugia. Italy

Abstract

The social and cultural perspective about persons with disabilities has substantially modified the consideration of the disability personal identity (Finkelstein, 1980; Oliver, 1990; Shakespeare, 1996). It is here presented, in succession, both the reformulation of the construct onto the disability personal identity accordingly to the adoption of the social model and, in the second part, statistical results obtained from a research onto
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Introduction. Identifying proper disability models that inform social and educational relationships of pupils with disabilities is an important step forward in the analysis of those “communicative stimuli” that affect the development of young people with disabilities (Federici, 2003), even beyond parental relationships. Moreover, a survey aimed to know the points of view of parents, teachers and educators might offer precious and rare information on the dissemination of principles stated in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF; WHO, 2002) as well as on the biopsychosocial model for different categories of people living in the same educational environment, but coming from different cultural and social backgrounds. Objectives. To explore any possible representation of disability which would orient opinions, attitudes, and behaviours in 83 individuals (teachers in regular schools and special teachers, parents of children with or without disabilities, social and medical staff, professional educators) in order to investigate the relationship between disability, adaptation, socialization and development as well as to contribute to the dissemination of the biopsychosocial model introduced by the ICF. Method. The experimental objective has been checked through qualitative analyses, by means of the Atlas.ti software, for text coding and interpreting on 16 focus group, a tool purposefully chosen to detect all those aspects connected with the primary objective, which, by means of quantitative analyses, uses the chi-square distributions. Results. The social model of disability is a very well known model to all professional groups, except for specialized teachers. Nevertheless, only parents of children with disabilities and regular-class teachers seem to strongly be willing to adhere to such a model. Whereas specialized teachers, social and medical staff and professional educators claim for a “transition model” which oscillates between the social and the biopsychosocial models, parents of children with no disabilities start from a different perspective oscillating between medical and social models. Conclusions. Results from the qualitative analysis, using both manual and computerized (Atlas.ti software) procedures, show varying perspectives on disabilities, other than medical, social and biopsychosocial models. The poor dissemination of the biopsychosocial model among parents highlights the lack of a vision which is “open” to personal development, social growth, improvement of the standards in the quality of life. This suggests a priority: the need for extending training and educational occasions also to parents, in order to promote a more effective management of personal and environmental resources to face disabilities of their children, in the aim of developing and actually promoting a new “culture of diversities”.
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Con ‘Sessualità alterabili’ vogliamo esprimere la complessità di un fenomeno psicosociale che riguarda il rapporto tra sessualità e disabilità. ‘Sessualità alterabili’, si riferisce innanzitutto allo sviluppo dell’identità sessuale e dell’immagine del proprio corpo, come corpo sessuato di un soggetto con disabilità, che è in larga parte alterato, compromesso e frustrato da stereotipi sociali riconducibili a miti discriminanti comunemente diffusi nelle più diverse culture mondiali. ‘Sessualità alterabili’, però, intende anche sottolineare come la sessualità di una persona con disabilità debba essere riletta all’interno di quelle specifiche e differenti esperienze di cui gli individui con disabilità sono gli unici testimoni. Nella misura in cui la persona con disabilità manifesta abilità fisiche, psichiche, spirituali, artistiche e culturali specifiche, altre da quelle di una cultura occidentale, bianca, patriarcale, medio-boghese, la diversità di prospettiva che nasce dal corpo e dalla mente di un disabile è un’altra, differente (e nella sua differenza, criticamente dialettica) visione del mondo e, di conseguenza, della normalità di un corpo e dei suoi bisogni e funzioni. Infine, ‘Sessualità alterabili’ significa che la sessualità di un disabile, attraverso il suo modo di sentire e vivere i bisogni del suo corpo come sessuato, amabile e amante, altera gli stereotipi della normalità, del concetto di ‘natura’, di ‘fisiologico’, di ‘sessuologico’, affermando la differente bellezza naturale, esperienziale e sessuale di una normalità della devianza, di un’ontologica contro-naturalità dell’esserci. Il libro raccoglie i dati di una rilevazione effettuata in diversi centri italiani, che accolgono persone con disabilità, sulle modalità di riconoscimento, accoglienza ed educazione della sessualità, vale a dire, sulle influenze socioambientali nello sviluppo della sessualità di persone disabili in Italia. Lo studio porta ad un livello critico ciò che è facilmente riscontrabile nell’ambito della disabilità, ovverosia, come nei centri d’accoglienza delle persone disabili e, spesso, nelle stesse famiglie di figli con disabilità, il problema dell’educazione sessuale rimanga, per così dire, latente, sommerso, non rientrando, di conseguenza, nelle finalità esplicite del progetto educativo dei medesimi.
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A survey on various public and private organizations dealing with treatment and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities throughout Italy was carried out; moreover, methods and techniques within the framework of sexuality was also investigated, since it relates to a wide range of disabilities. Our study showed that sex education is frequently hidden or even kept latent, when relating to persons with disabilities who live in public and private facilities or in their families. Sex education is not explicitly included in the main goals of educational programs.In the present study, sex education for persons with disabilities is approached from an innovative point of view. Indeed, disability problems are dealt with using case histories and practical applications of techniques along with educational theory. We collected personal accounts derived from interviews to mentally and physically disabled persons, parents of disabled children, and professional caregivers who work in this field. Survey data are interpreted from a phenomenological and qualitative point of view rather than from a statistical point of view. Consequently, results of our analysis provided us with the proper means to develop a Course of Sexual Education for Persons with Disabilities, Professional Educators and Parents. Together with the Course of Sexual Education, a psychometric test to measure inner sex identity (developed by Marta Olivetti Belardinelli in her research) will be administered to all participants, in order to understand how the course has affected psycho-affective maturity. Furthermore, assuming that sex identity is a cognitive organizer, sex education could represent an helpful instrument to improve individual’s mental skills, through the acquisition of affective intelligence.
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The social and cultural perspective about persons with disabilities has substantially modified the consideration of the disability personal identity (Finkelstein, 1980; Oliver, 1990; Shakespeare, 1996). It is here presented, in succession, both the reformulation of the construct onto the disability personal identity accordingly to the adoption of the social model and, in the second part, statistical results obtained from a research onto
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