Stigma, Self-Hatred, and Stereotypes: Using a Critical Disability Studies Framework to Understand Learning Disabilities and Mental Illness

Abstract

Critical disability studies (CDS) questions how knowledge is constructed to maintain systems that exclude and control those with disabilities. Without acknowledging the disability experience in conjunction to structural, systematic, and institutional inequalities, we are limiting ourselves to harmful binary thinking. Individuals with disabilities, such as learning disabilities (LDs), are constructed in society as passive, dependent, or failures. Those with mental “illness’” are also stigmatized in similar ways. This paper will ask: In what ways does using a CDS framework, make us think differently about the mental health of individuals with LDs? How can CDS help break the divide between LDs and individuals with a poor mental health and what does this perspective offer to mental health research? There is a clear parallel between the barriers faced by those with LDs and those with mental health hardships. CDS offers a new perspective to disability research by uncovering the social stigma and prejudices faced by those deemed “ill.” This type of research redefines how those with LDs and mental “illnesses” are categorized. CDS can help reduce stigma amongst LDs and mental health, and consequently those suffering from both. For those with LDs, who feel unheard and unworthy, and because of this, have a compromised mental health, a CDS framework can help remove self-blame and self-hatred. Ultimately uncovering how disability reflects a phenomenon to be deconstructed amongst social, political, and systematic barriers.