Bioethics in Dialogue with People with Profound Disabilities?

For my Blog this week I am quoting directly from a paper from an unusual source (unusual for Intensive Interaction that is) by Dr Pia Matthews, a lecturer in bioethics and moral theology. So below I have reproduced some interesting, and at times possibly quite philosophically challenging quotes from this paper:

Communication Strategies and Intensive Interaction Therapy Meet the Theology of the Body: Bioethics in Dialogue with People with Profound Disabilities, by Dr Pia Matthews in The New Bioethics (2013), vol. 19 (2), 97–110.

'Although no one can fully come to know another person, knowing more about how that person is can help to break through some of the things that isolate people from each other'.

'The barrier to communication happens long before an attempt at communication is made'.

'Like many therapies, intensive interaction is only as good as the practitioner. It relies on the practitioner’s skill, how resourceful she is in the identifying communication and how creative she can be in sharing that communication'.

'Simply looking at intensive interaction from a practical viewpoint does however neglect some more serious problems. The therapy encourages one of the partners precisely not to be herself.  By asking the partner therapist to copy the actions of the other in order to break into the other’s world the partner therapist’s acts no longer reflect who she is. Moreover, it risks being intrusive instead of a way of ‘being with’ another in companionship. In addition there is more significant risk that some practitioners ... implicitly believe that the person with disabilities is a person or mind trapped in a crippled body, as if the body is a useless or indeed limiting extra, and that it is the job of the therapist to reach out and free this person'.

'Inevitably the situation of the person with disabilities is subject to the interpretations of the partner therapist and so the person becomes vulnerable to the other ... Furthermore, if the relationship is said to begin when there has been a response then it would seem that the practice of intensive interaction need not necessarily recognise and respect the dignity of each person. At times it does not seem to be able to avoid one person becoming an object for the other'.

'... in the intensive interaction approach to people with disabilities bodily action has ‘the most basic and essential significance for grasping the subjectivity of the human being’ (Pope John Paul II -1993: 224) ... Furthermore, this Thomistic* language of the body applies to all human beings whether abled or disabled. This means that it specifically points to a fundamental respect for all human beings as sharing in the same kind of human nature. There is no ‘them’ and ‘us’; there is only ‘we’.'

Some interesting food for thought! ... and the moral or ethical arguments for using Intensive Interaction are possibly an area we should be thinking about much more when advocating for it's use. Perhaps we should be clearer in our claims that Intensive Interaction is the morally correct way to think and act when we are trying to socially connect with our communication partner - irrespective of any spiritual or religious views that we might hold. 

Yes we do Intensive Interaction because it is theoretically coherent; yes we do Intensive Interaction because it is demonstrably effective ... but perhaps most of all we do Intensive Interaction because it is simply the right way to be with people.

[*i.e. from the philosophical thinking related to the work of Thomas Aquinas].