[Handicap and normality: needs and interventions].

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to restore the concept of "handicap" to its original etymologic meaning as a term that identifies a relationship rather than a property concerning only one subject. If the handicap is not considered only in terms of a single person but of the relationship between him and his environmental context, it is possible to avoid the dual ideological constraint whereby people are condemned to no-way-out disability or society is stigmatized as the receptacle for all ills. The wellbeing of the disabled and society alike can become feasible as a result of the flexible rediscovery of this relationship and the formulation of original new creative approaches to normality.