Emotion, Executive Dysfunction, and Agency

Virtue theory has addressed the role of human emotions in moral agency since its earliest proponents. Timpe’s goal in this chapter is to see how far this connection can be pushed by looking at certain kinds of emotional disability (or impairments with regard to emotional control). More specifically, he explores what implications contemporary research in psychology about executive dysfunction and emotion has for thinking about virtues that take emotions as their objects (e.g., fortitude). Timpe argues that certain kinds of disabilities significantly impact an agent’s ability to develop the proper dispositions regarding emotions that are typically associated with virtue and human flourishing because of how those disabilities impact the agent’s emotions. Some disabilities will impair an agent’s ability to exercise the kind of executive function needed to regulate the emotions and develop virtue. Timpe ends by considering how the sort of disabilities considered relate to Christian flourishing and community.

Psycho-emotional disability in the marketplace

Purpose Through adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability, this study aims to offer consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws insight from the interview data of a wider two-year interpretive research study investigating access barriers to marketplaces for consumers living with impairment. Findings The overarching contribution offers to consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment. Further contributions offered by this paper: unearth the emotion of fear to be central to manifestations of psycho-emotional disability; reveal a broader understanding of the marketplace practices, and core perpetrators, that psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment; and uncover psycho-emotional disability to extend beyond the context of impairment. Research limitations/implications This study adopts a UK-only perspective. However, findings uncovered that the model of psycho-emotional disability has wider theoretical value to marketing and consumer research beyond the context of impairment. Practical implications The insight offered into the precise marketplace practices that disable consumers living with impairment leads this paper to call for a revising of disability training within marketplace and service contexts. Originality/value Extending current consumer research and consumer vulnerability research on disability, the empirical adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability is a fruitful framework for extrapolating insight into marketplace practices that internally oppress and psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment.

Disability and Madness in Colonial Asylum Records in Australia and New Zealand

Case records examined here are those of inmates in two public institutions for the insane in colonial Victoria, Australia, and in Auckland, New Zealand, between 1870 and 1910. In the international field of mental health studies and histories of psychiatry, intellectual disability has been the subject of detailed historical inquiry and forms part of the critical discussion about how institutions for the “insane” housed a range of inmates in the nineteenth century. Yet the archival records of mental hospitals have rarely been examined in any sustained way for their detail about the physically disabled or those whose records denote bodily difference. References to the physical manifestations of various forms of intellectual or emotional disability, as well as to bodily difference and “deformity,” were part of the culture of the colonial institution, which sought to categorize, label, and ascribe identities to institutional inmates.

Vulvar Hemangioma: Case Report

Hemangioma is a benign neoplasm that may affect the vulva, and it can cause functional or emotional disability. This article reports the case of a 52-year-old female patient with a history of a genital ulcer for the past 3 years and who had undergone various treatments with creams and ointments. The patient was biopsied and diagnosed with vulvar hemangioma and was subsequently submitted to surgical excision of the lesion. We emphasize the importance of following the steps of the differential diagnosis and proceeding with a surgical approach only if necessary.

Effectiveness of individual psychodynamic psychotherapy in disability psychotherapy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report effectiveness of disability psychotherapy with a male adult with a mild intellectual disability presenting with complex emotional and behavioural problems. Design/methodology/approach – An individual case study was used with repeated analytic, quantitative and qualitative measures. This reported progress from individual weekly disability psychotherapy of psychodynamic orientation within an emotional disability framework. Findings – Disability psychotherapy led to a reduction in emotional and behavioural problems, reduction in emotional disability and facilitated protective psychological growth. In total, 88 sessions resulted in cessation of problem behaviours when other approaches did not. Given this therapy is likely to be reserved for the most complex and severe of cases, this study suggests more sessions of psychotherapy are needed than inferred from previous studies of effectiveness (Beail et al., 2007). This is to promote a sense of self which facilitates psychological well-being. Research limitations/implications – Limitations of a single case study include generalisability, controlling other factors in real life settings and subjectivity from inclusion of analytical measures. Further studies and follow-up would determine longevity of benefits. Nevertheless disability psychotherapy can be effective and should be available in a culturally appropriate service to meet the diverse needs of people with intellectual disabilities. Originality/value – This case study adds to the limited body of evidence on effectiveness of psychotherapy for people with intellectual disabilities. It is novel to report formal outcomes from an emotional disability model (Frankish, 2013a) and the use of analytic and attachment outcome measures.