Empowerment Therapy

THE NEWPORT DAILY NEWS

Thursday, September 11, 1997

Skier/author Has Insight into How to Survive a Loss

Newport Live; R.E. Reimer

Skiing is not my forte. The last time I tried it, when I was a kid, I landed in a tree. So I marvel at Brian J. Hubbard, a Newporter and a world-class skier who is blind.

Not just a little blind- he’s totally blind. And he’s severely deaf, relying on powerful hearing aids and microphones. But none of it stops him from opening doors of opportunity.

In tribute to Hubbard, some friends are sponsoring a book signing and cocktail party tonight at 6 at the Rotunda at Easton’s Beach. The book signing is for Hubbard’s new book, “From Emptiness to Empowerment.”

The evening has been dubbed “Skiing Blind!” and will feature a performance at 7:30 of “Prevailing Winds,” a musical by Newport playwright Maureen Barnes who has produced the book-signing event. A cabaret with comics, musicians and surprise guests follows at 9.

Hubbard lost his sight and hearing because of the genetic disease retinitis pigmentosa. But he hasn’t let it stop him from getting on with his life.

For fun, he’s a member of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team.

For work, he’s been a licensed clinical social worker, counseling both able-bodied and disabled people for 20 years. He developed the first counseling program for the disabled and chronically ill called Counseling for Independent Living.

He’s now written about how to turn loss of any kind into a strength that leads to living fully and successfully.

The 50 year-old psychotherapist from Newport has put it all in his book “From Emptiness to Empowerment,” published by Dorrance Publications of Pittsburgh. A paperback sells for $14.

“The book is basically a self-help manual but it’s not only for disabled people,” Hubbard said. “Everybody experiences loss of some kind.”

Hubbard was 8 when he began skiing and playing hockey. On the ice rink, ‘I kept getting clobbered because I couldn’t see from the side,” he said.

Later as a teen, it was evident his sight was tunneling and his hearing was fading. He gave up hockey- but not skiing.

Gradually he became legally blind, but struggled through college and two failed marriages. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and went on to get a master’s degree in clinical social work from Virginia Commonwealth University.

He went to work for the Newport County Community Mental Health Center in 1980 and then went into private practice in 1982. His office is in Middletown.

Hubbard said he added to the mountain of self-help books because he thought his position was unique. “I’m the only blind and profoundly hearing-impaired person counseling in the country that I know of,” he said. And through his own struggles, he thought he could offer some advice on how to cope with loss and open some doors.