Renee;
In my understanding, the shift from a medical model of disability (and
patients) to a psychosocial rehabilitation model (and clients) was followed
with a critique by people like Wolf Wolfensberger and Vic Frankelstein and a
move to a socio-political model of disability. Both prior movements were
seen as equating difference as deficient.
I find it difficult to talk to other human service workers without using the
term clients, but this difficulty in classifying people is exactly what the
model seeks to accomplish as well as resisting the power of human service in
a Foucaultian sense. An agency I worked for banned the word client for the
words "person we serve". It used "people first" language (i.e., a person
with a disabilities, not a disabled person) and emphasized our role as
service providers. However, without questioning the underlying power
structures, the term "person served" became common which was effectively the
same as client.
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