The importance of ontological security in relation to the construction of disability

Floris Tomasini (Dr)School of Public Health and Clinical SciencesUniversity of Central Lancashire

Trusting others, trusting ourselves

Trust is often theorised in relation to external events e.g. people are deemed trustworthy if they are reliable, societies are deemed trustworthy if they uphold human rights etcetera.

Trust also points to our inner lives: how secure we feel in ourselves, the life decisions we make, the values we hold etcetera.

Vulnerable embodiment and ontological in/security “A basically ontological secure person will

encounter all the hazards of life, social, biological, spiritual, from a centrally firm sense of his own and other people’s reality and identity” (R.D Laing, 1961)

Play between ontological security and insecurity is one way of thinking about vulnerability. Too ontologically insecure and we face mental health issues. Too ontologically secure and we are resistant to change/insensitive to difference.

Ontological security/vulnerability: why they are important concepts. Ontological in/security is a way of theorising

vulnerability and is a way of thinking through the advantages of both models of disability (social AND medical)

Ontological in/security is fundamental concept from which other related concepts in DS gain their sense.

Psycho-emotional disablism/ internalised oppression for example

Ontological in/security ambivalence allows for narratives of liberation as well as well as oppression

Thinking through vulnerability and ontological in/security in amputees

There are levels on ontological in/security in which vulnerability is evident

These span both medical as well as social narratives about what it is to vulnerable and disabled

Examples of ontological in/security in amputees (1)

To explain how real it is I suppose a good example would be …I had an argument with me girlfriend and I just totally forgot that I didn’t have a leg and just expected it to be there. It felt like it was there, but it wasn’t there. I just went and fell; quite badly actually. That is how real it feels. I have to be consciously aware that it is not there because I think it is…

Examples of ontological in/security - voluntary amputees (2)

I: Did the phantom help you cope at all? AMP: No I found it unnerving actually. It was

the other way. Once I had the sensation and fell on the bed I worried then afterwards whether I’d do it again.

I see the phantom as positive because it brings a kind of reality to things. The pain is warning me not to try and use it. The phantom pain is saying there is nothing there.

Examples of ontological in/security – involuntary amputees (1) Inside I feel like my legs don’t belong to

me… I don’t want to die, but there are times that I don’t want to keep living in a body that doesn’t feel like mine.. My legs are extraneous.. The desire that I have is for an amputation of above the knee of the right leg.

When I met Greg was clear that he was a very sane man and that there was absolutely no question that he was thought disordered in way or mentally ill or sexually bizarre. I couldn’t.. Understand.

Examples of ontological in/security – involuntary amputees (2)

The desire that I have is for an amputation above the knee… I have no way to explain into anybody in the world. Let alone explain it to myself and you sitting out there think its nuts, I’m sitting in here thinking its nuts, but I can’t help it.

Why bother with vulnerability? Towards an understanding of otherness

A different way of thinking about disability that avoids generalised models

Shallow and deep accounts of understanding otherness – external and internal barriers to impairment that can be analysed at different levels from different perspectives.

It allows for polyvalent narratives of disability that are not always about oppression but also about liberation.

“Love is the difficult realisation that someone other than you exists” – Iris Murdoch

Floris Tomasini (Dr)School of Public Health and Clinical SciencesUniversity of Central Lancashire