SPCL 7922 Multicultural Counseling and Consultation (Elizalde-Utnick): Session 10 - Module 10: Ableism, Sizeism, & Intersectionality

George is a white, male, 16-year-old, high school student who was born with cerebral palsy (CP). George walks with a very pronounced bilateral limp, his arms tend to jerk spasmodically, and he drools. He has a learning disability but above-average IQ. His speech is labored and difficult to understand. Sometimes he tries a different word, or to spell a word, when someone does not understand him.

In the 1st grade he was placed in special education with children with autism and intellectual disabilities. His mother fought to place him in a regular classroom and prevailed by 2nd grade, but George knew that others assumed he was “slow.” Throughout school he has been receiving services to help with carrying his books, feeding, and writing. Since middle school he spends part of the day in resource room because he needs to dictate his homework. Sometimes a friend of his hangs out with him, but usually he is alone with his aide.

George is quite depressed. When he is not in school, he is generally at home and rarely socializes. For most of his life he has lived alone with his mother. His father left soon after George was born when his CP was diagnosed, telling his mother, “I didn’t sign on for this.” She relays this story often to George in his childhood.

George carries a backpack because he can’t get a wallet out of his packet, and he exerts a lot of energy when he walks. He often has body odor, as if he had been working out. When he gets up from the chair in counseling with the school psychologist, he splays his lower limbs out, drops to the floor on his knees, turns toward the chair, and hefts himself to a standing position.

The school psychologist, a relatively young, able-bodied, female, was eager to show that she was okay with disability, but her discomfort could be seen in small acts. She was embarrassed to ask him to repeat more than once something she did not understand. She never remarked on his body odor. She plunged into a description of the social model of disability, telling him that there is nothing wrong with him that some social activities couldn’t fix. George’s response was to say, “I don’t want any of that victim shit,” which puzzled the school psychologist. She was only trying to say that it was society’s problem, not George’s. She was relentlessly upbeat and full of ideas for George to try, even if they had not worked in the past. She assumed his depression was normative for someone with a significant disability, and hence she encouraged his expression of negative emotions, which only further discouraged him.