A. Delle Fave

F. Massimini

English

AIR Universita degli studi di Milano

                                                                                                                        Disability and experience 1 
 
Making Disability Into a Resource 
 
Antonella Delle Fave and Fausto Massimini 
Università degli Studi di Milano 
 
Published: The Psychologist, 1, 2003, 9-10 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Author Note 
Antonella Delle Fave and Fausto Massimini, Dipartimento di Scienze Precliniche LITA Vialba, 
Università degli Studi di Milano 
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Antonella Delle Fave, Dipartimento 
di Scienze Precliniche LITA Vialba, Università degli Studi di Milano, via G.B. Grassi, 74, 20157 
Milano, Italy. E-mail: antonella.dellefave@unimi.it 
 
 
                                                                                                                        Disability and experience 2 
Making Disability Into a Resource 
 
 In order to promote individual autonomy and social integration, intervention programmes 
should focus on the opportunities for challenge, enjoyment and personal satisfaction disabled 
people report in their daily lives. 
 
 The European Community declared 2003 the Year of Disabled Citizens, emphasising the 
need for policies focused on people’s subjective perspective. Information on how disabled people 
experience their daily life, social relations and environmental opportunities for action is essential to 
centre intervention programmes on individual resources rather than on social expectations. The 
quality of life not only depends on health conditions, but also on personality and style of interaction 
with the environment. Sick people frequently report positive consequences of illness, such as 
improved interpersonal relationships, positive personality changes, and even a better quality of life 
(Albrecht & Devlieger, 1999; Sodergren & Hyland, 2000). In this article, we investigate the positive 
experiences disabled people report in their daily life and their potential in fostering personal growth 
and social integration.  
 The revised International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO, 2001) 
conceptualises disablement as an interaction between individual and environmental features, 
comprising three dimensions: impairment of biological or psychological structures or functions, 
activity limitations, and participation restrictions (consequences of impairment that limit or prevent 
the fulfilment of expected social roles).  
Environmental factors, such as cultural norms and economical conditions, can hinder or 
facilitate the social integration of disabled people (Tanaka-Matsumi & Draguns, 1997). However 
individuals, in their turn, actively interact with their environment. Through a lifelong process, 
defined psychological selection (Csikszentmihalyi & Massimini, 1985), they translate into daily 
behaviour a subset of activities, relationships, values available in the cultural context. Psychological 
                                                                                                                        Disability and experience 3 
selection is based on the quality of experience (Massimini & Delle Fave, 2000). In particular, 
people preferentially carry out and cultivate activities associated with optimal experience 
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000). This state of consciousness is characterised by the perception of 
high environmental challenges, high personal skills, concentration, involvement, enjoyment, control 
of the situation, and intrinsic motivation. Optimal experience shows a dynamic structure that is 
crucial for personal growth and skill development: Through the constant practice of a given activity, 
the individual will master increasing difficulties, and consequently search for new and higher 
challenges.  
We analysed the role of optimal experience in the life of disabled people through Flow 
Questionnaire (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988), designed to investigate the occurrence 
of this experience, its psychological features, and the associated activities. We administered the 
questionnaire to 56 people with congenital disabilities (blindness and motor impairments). All but 
one recognised optimal experience in their lives, and mostly associated it with work, study and the 
use of media. These results highlight the potential of optimal experience in fostering both wellbeing 
and social integration: Job and learning were occasions for enjoyment, intrinsic reward and skill 
development, as well as opportunities for active participation in the productive life.  
We administered the same questionnaire to 45 people who became blind, paraplegic or 
tetraplegic during adolescence or adulthood. They had to face dramatic changes in the available 
opportunities for action, often being deprived of activities previously associated with optimal 
experiences. Nevertheless, 41 participants recognised optimal experience in their present life. Blind 
people mostly associated it with media and work, paraplegic and tetraplegic people with sport 
practice, work, and physiotherapy. Participants had managed to preserve optimal experience after 
the onset of disability, discovering new activities, or adapting previous ones to the changed physical 
conditions. Blind people developed new skills in the use of media, learning to read in Braille. 
People with motor impairments acquired new capabilities in sports such as basketball and table 
                                                                                                                        Disability and experience 4 
tennis, and through rehabilitation practice, whose role is vital for reintegration in the active life after 
spinal injuries (Delle Fave & Massimini, 2001). 
 Our findings suggest that physical impairments, rather than preventing individual 
development, can help individuals discover new opportunities for optimal experience and foster 
personal growth. For this reason, rehabilitation programmes and integration projects should pursue 
two goals. At the environmental level, they should provide meaningful opportunities for social 
integration. At the individual level, they should focus on the activities subjectively associated with 
optimal experiences in order to exploit the behavioural flexibility and resource potential of disabled 
people, promoting their personal growth and their active contribution to society and culture.  
 
                                                                                                                        Disability and experience 5 
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Making disability into a resource

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Making disability into a resource

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