This is a lucid and thought-provoking reflection on the disabled person and an informative guide to the associations, groups, and periodicals working in this field. It also serves as an up-to-date guide to national and regional legislation affecting this particular segment of citizens. Antonio Guidi, a neuropsychiatrist, brings a privileged perspective: he directed a public rehabilitation center in the Marche region for ten years and now serves as a consultant to the Ministry of Health and RAI. He assesses both the enormous positive strides made over recent decades and the considerable distance still to travel. His is not merely an evaluation but an indictment of the frequent contradictions in the present situation—and a realistic, original proposal for possible ways forward.
His starting point, which runs through the entire book, is the urgency and the obligation of society to shift the attitude that pushes disabled people into a separate, alien world.
In truth, that world is an integral part of the world in which we live. The more consciously it is accepted and understood, the more concretely it becomes possible for practitioners to improve the lives of those who have the same right as everyone else to live with dignity, to develop their capacities, and above all to find growing peace of mind.
- Natalia Livi, 1989