> Disability, for purposes of explaining oppression, is a social
> construct.
I agree-- with only a query about how the term "social construct" may be used. I think Marta and I would understand it in the same way, but it is *also* used by those who mean "existing only in discourse." There are real social relations energizing this process. [SNIP]
> To address your medical model also, the visable/invisable disability
> analysis may be proved not to have much of a foundation on which to
> rest. For instance, depression and schizophrenia can be treated with
> chemical substances that either minimize or eliminate symptoms which
> would indicate that there IS a physical connection.
Yes; I suspect that my overlong post was also too short in places. I intended the "soft/hard" distinction to be ideological rather than "medical."
If seratonin or
> dopamine can make depression disappear it stands to reason that there is
> a chemical component missing in the brain, a physical chemical
> deficiency - like a diabetic who takes insulin to replace what the body
> does not produce, the depressive can pop Prozac.
Yes. Or at any rate this is *absolutely the first step*.
>
> Also, there is no "hard" test for fibromyalgia, a condition which has
> very specific physical symptoms but cannot be shown by MRI, xray, bood
> test, etc., and is not in the mental category of a "brain disorder."
> Relying on "hard" and "soft" medical symptoms to define disability is
> constricted and incomplete.
Yes. Yes. The WSJ editorial which I had in mind was on fibromyalgia, and pulled the stunt (with malice aforethought) of first identifying fibromyalgia with depression and then depression with malingering. There is also that stupid woman from Princeton who wrote a book classifying fibromyalgia victims ("chronic fatigue syndrome") with believers in ufos. Then in a "Diary" in the London Review of Books she used the quite reasonbly enraged response to her idiocy as further confirmation that all who disagreed with her were freaks. (I could easily check on her name, but I would rather leave her in a limbo of nameless infamy.)
Carrol