Rehabilitating a Philosophy of Rehabilitation

Issue title: Professional Development of Rehabilitation Personnel

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Lentz Walker, Martha

Affiliations: Rehabilitation Counseling, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

Abstract: Common values and current conceptual differences among VR professionals, supported employment advocates, and consumers are discussed. Authentic empowerment, rather than political drama, is viewed as possible through professional preparation emphasizing thoughtful practice and multiple approaches to knowing. That you care enough to come, that you remember what you see, that you keep your promises … Mary Elizabeth Switzer Mary Switzer, recognized champion of persons with disabilities for 50 years, practiced keeping promises. The rehabilitation program in the United States today represents many of the promises Mary Switzer kept. I thought it would be simple to write about rehabilitation as a philosophy and promised to do so for this issue of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation. I have taught graduate students in rehabilitation counseling for 20 years, and I always began with philosophy. I had no idea how difficult it would be to keep my promise. My search of rehabilitation literature yielded a wide collection of values, principles, and concepts. Some writers had attempted philosophical considerations, but I became increasingly frustrated as I tried to systematically present what I had so easily taught in graduate classes. I realized, quite painfully, that there is no one philosophy of rehabilitation and that I was very angry and frightened by current critics of the rehabilitation system, a system that embodies an approximation of rehabilitation philosophy. I spent four years writing the story of Mary Switzer's life, a life embedded in rehabilitation history. As an outcome of that experience, I have great respect for incrementalism. I gained increasing respect for the ultimate insider and the changes Mary Switzer was able to effect from within a bureaucracy. I was o.ffended by accusations that the rehabilitation system had thwarted supported employment (Rogan and Murphy, 1991). I was frightened by the separatism of consumers (Parrino, 1991). It seemed to me that the rehabilitation system nurtured by Mary Switzer was at great risk of being dismantled. The urgency I felt each time I tried to write about the philosophy of rehabilitation reflected the tension of the time. If ever a unifying philosophy was needed, it was now. My friend and philosophy teacher, Patricia James, read the first draft of this article and rescued it from my defensiveness. Patricia James drew me into a dialogue of reconstruction. I began to order those concepts that guide our practice discipline. I offer this reconstruction to you, as one practitioner to another, in the hope that we may be able to assemble our various wisdoms, to bring to light rich differences, and to prepare ourselves for thoughtful action. My promise is partially kept, with the invitation to each reader to criticize and communicate as we attempt to articulate commonalities and differences.

DOI: 10.3233/JVR-1992-2404

Journal: Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 12-19, 1992