🖋 SWANK Dispatch | 24 November 2024
“Therapy Is Not a Cure for Institutional Ableism”
Filed Under: Adjustment Denied · Therapy Blocked · Disability Misunderstood · Verbal Coercion · Community Exclusion · SWANK London Ltd
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Dear Kirsty,
“I’d love to go to therapy but no one will provide adjustments for my disability needs…”
That is not defiance.
That is the documentation of exclusion.
Not a lack of willingness — a lack of access.
Not refusal — obstruction.
A blockade made of unacknowledged needs and verbal tyranny disguised as procedure.
“This limits my ability as well as my kids’ ability to integrate into the community at all.”
And yet, the blame lands on us—
As though exclusion were a matter of attitude, not architecture.
“You keep expecting us to behave like people who don’t have a disability, and we can’t.”
Can’t, not won’t.
That difference defines the law.
Your refusal to grasp it is not a misunderstanding. It is a violation.
“Someone needs to call the mental health practice and help them understand…”
Indeed. Because until they comprehend communication that does not rely on breath and noise,
therapy is not therapy.
It is a performative corridor of pain, lined with clinical ignorance.
You do not get to say I “declined support” when no support was ever offered in an accessible form.
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📍 Untherapised by Refusal, Not Resistance
Polly Chromatic
Advocate of Non-Verbal Integrity
✉ director@swanklondon.com
🌐 www.swanklondon.com
© SWANK London Ltd. All Adjustments Enforced.