Creative Essay: What the Medical Model Can Learn From the Case of the Colorblind Painter: A Disability Perspective

Abstract

The author of this reflection is someone who has lived with hemiparesis throughout her entire life, yet has chosen to work as a physical therapist and professor of neurological impairment within the rehabilitation field. She brings her perspectives to the evaluation of the color-blind painter, whose story was shared in the classic book of Oliver Sachs’ Anthropologist from Mars. Using the Brandt-Pope Model of enabling-disabling continuum, the reflection begs the questions so often avoided by the medical model, what if fixing the problem is not the sought answer? What if the normal curve has lost appeal?