Positivity and Disability: A Descriptive Narrative Review

Abstract

Disability experience need not always bring up negativity. The quality of life, satisfaction, and well-being of such people can be positive, optimistic, hopeful, and marked with independence, healthy coping skills, strong resilience, and self-determination. This narrative seeks to break the perception gap between public perception and the private inner experience of affected persons by outlining a few threads of positivity within the realm of disability. Heavily tilted towards rights-based models, person-in-environment social and cultural aspects of the disability experience are taken into account, while the use of positive rather than negative emotions is explained. Finally, before inviting more empirical attention to this neglected field of study, mention is made of the sparse research related to this area.