What Psychotherapists Should Know About Disability

Rhoda Olkin, PhD, is a professor in the clinical psychology program at the California School of Professional Psychology in Alameda, California. She is also on the staff of Through the Looking Glass in Berkeley, California, an agency serving families with disabilities, and the National Resource Center for Parents with Disabilities. She has experience in disability from the perspective of an administrator (she founded handicapped services at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the mid-1970s, and is currently the Faculty Advisor to Students with Disabilities at the California School of Professional Psychology), researcher, clinician, teacher, and spouse (of a man with multiple sclerosis), as well as personal experience (she had polio in 1954). Her short stories have been published in literary magazines, and her most recent story on a disability theme appears in Bigger Than the Sky: Disabled Women on Parenting. Her two children can spot ramps and handicapped parking with the best of them.