Identity and its reconstruction and disabled people

Abstract

A disabled person with acquired disability must manage to cope with social identity, reconstruct their identity and construct own biography from scratch. People with inborn disability create their identity of a disabled person from the beginning. They are educated to play a role of a person with disabilities in society. The stigma of disability remains with a disabled person forever. Disability becomes the central category determining the social identity of these individuals. The problems which were raised are connected with setting up the line between personal and social identity, between satisfying the need of being unique and the need to belong, between defining a person through the prism of stigma and perceiving them as representative of the specific type of personality. The mark of the person with disability that this disability imprints in their life is the best known only by the people who live with it. The article is an attempt to answer questions: Is it possible to manage the social identity or does the disabled person need to reconstruct their identity or construct their biography from scratch? What are the chances of dealing with disability stigma?