Doing better on blindness

I am a blind person who is an academic, teacher, researcher and practitioner psychologist. I recently encountered ableism from two different academic psychologists whilst engaging in CPD. The first was from the head of psychology at a UK university who was delivering training and the second an associate professor giving a talk.

I was attending the first event on my mobile phone, typically the most accessible way of using online platforms for visually impaired people. My camera was switched off as I did not have access to my phone stand and didn't want to treat my colleagues to an unflattering view up my nose.

A few slides into the training the facilitator provided 'rules' for the session, including telling everyone to turn on their cameras, stating their reasoning that it is challenging to build rapport with another person if you cannot see them. As my camera was off, the facilitator specifically asked me to turn it on. In response, I explained that I had been deeply offended by their comments in relation to rapport building and that as a blind practitioner psychologist this certainly was not my experience. I do wonder how much self-moderation may have occurred if they were aware they had a blind participant in the class. It is in these moments of anonymity that I get a peek into the ablest attitudes of others. 

Fast forward seven days and I am listening to a talk being delivered by an associate professor in psychology. The talk was entertaining until the speaker's tone seemed to move from a position of laughing with to laughing at blind people who were part of his research population of interest. It is a very lonely and shaming experience to be in a room of over 100 people all laughing at your community because they are amused by the idea of a congenitally blind person negotiating an obstacle course. The speaker further expressed challenges in recruiting blind participants for research by explaining the difficulties in accessing this population. A mocking and othering tone was adopted giving the impression that the speaker found the concept of blind people using social media to be bordering on absurd.

Once again, I do wonder if I were sitting in their line of sight with my wonderful guide dog, Pluto (pictured with me above), whether they would have tempered the blind jokes. They evidently felt safe to shame blind people in this way, confident they wouldn't encounter a blind person in their audience. It is very upsetting to witness mainstream attitudes towards blindness in this way and to witness blind people being a target for punching down comedy.

As a profession psychology needs to do better. It should not be assumed that disabled people are not part of the professional community and there should be no place for ableism.

Dr Stuart Gore

Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy

University of Leeds