Psychosocial disabilities

Psychosocial disabilities arise from the interaction between psychosocial impairments with barriers to social participation and access to rights linked to mental health or cognitive conditions or disturbances in behaviour that are perceived as socially unacceptable. The term is typically reserved for individuals experiencing more persistent or recurrent functional impairment who face systematic exclusion and barriers to participation and should not be applied to individuals with temporary mental health conditions.

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 severe mental health conditions 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 Inter Agency Standing Committee Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, Version 2.0