Psychosocial disabilities

The word psychosocial refers to the interaction between the psychological and social/cultural components of disability. The psychological component refers to ways of thinking and processing experiences and perception of the world around us. The social/cultural component refers to societal and cultural limits for behavior that interact with those psychological differences/madness as well as the stigma that the society attaches to labeling persons with psychosocial disabilities as disabled.

The term psychosocial disability is not yet understood in most countries of the world, and therefore, in the text of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) the more generally understood terminology of mental impairment is used. Persons with mental impairments include users and survivors of psychiatry who experience or have experienced experiencing madness and/or mental health problems and/or are using or surviving, or have used or survived psychiatry/mental health services, as well as those of us who are perceived by others as having a mental disability/impairment.

Definition adapted from the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry Implementation manual for the CRPD