Empowerment Therapy

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

January 16, 1990

Clinic Provides an Empathetic Ear for the Disabled By Stephen Heffner

MIDDLETOWN Brian Hubbard is nearly blind, but when he informs you that he once skied the KT-22 slope at Squaw Valley, California, without falling, you are not only inclined to believe that he is capable of almost anything, but that his latest mountain of a challenge is as good as licked.

KT-22, after all, is one of the steepest, most rugged ski slopes in the country, and though Hubbard followed a ski guide, his field of vision was confined to the backs of the guide’s boots, which he saw only as "dots."

A three- time gold medal winner for the U.S. Disabled Ski Team, Hubbard, 42, has turned his attention to another daring endeavor: establishing a non-profit psychotherapy clinic for severely disabled people (those suffering blindness, deafness, spinal cord injuries and the like) using only severely disabled therapists.

Hubbard thinks that his clinic, called Counseling for Independent Living, is the first of its kind anywhere, and recent Journal-Bulletin inquiries support that claim.

Backed by government loans and private grants, Hubbard set up shop last August in an office building on Valley Road, with himself as the principal therapist and a stack of resumes on his desk from those wanting to join his staff as counselors. Clients have trickled in as news of the clinic spreads, and Hubbard says he hopes to open another office soon in the Independence Square area of Pawtucket.

The clinic’s founding principle, he says, is that "only someone with a sever disability can truly understand all the frustrations people with those disabilities go through. One of the most crucial elements of successful counseling is trust. The client has to trust that the therapist understands his problems."

A professional clinical social worker, Hubbard suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, which severely impairs his hearing and reduces his field of vision to a narrow, blurred tunnel.

He grew up in East Lynn, Mass., and first felt the disease’s debilitating effects while playing high school hockey at the age of 16.

"I would be very uncomfortable if a therapist said to me’ I know what it must feel like to have your disability,’" he says. "There are a lot of small things, day-to-day things, that the disabled go through that you don’t understand until it happens to you. It’s a unique set of frustrations. I’m not saying that able-bodied people can’t counsel the disabled, but all other things being equal, I think it enhances the trust level if the therapist is also disabled."

Hubbard supports his theory with preliminary results from a survey he has taken of disabled people, which he says indicate that 80 percent of the respondents "believe that a counselor without a disability can’t fully understand a person with a sever disability."

At least one of Hubbard’s clients, Bernard Selby, is sold on the approach. Selby, 54, a former chemist and teacher at Rhode Island College, has been blind for nearly 6 years as a result of a 20-year bout with diabetes.

"Often when you’re talking to (an able-bodied) professional about the psychological difficulties that come from having a disability, the counselor will say, ‘Oh I understand what it must be like,’" says Selby. "And a lot of times you want to say, ‘What the hell do you know?’"

Selby says that when he lost his vision, he was psychologically unprepared to deal with the loss, and he wishes that Hubbard’s services were available then.

"I was devastated. For two years, I went only from my bedroom downstairs to eat and back to my bedroom. I though there wasn’t anything I could do. I thought I had no possibilities. Who wants a blind chemist? But since I’ve been talking with Brian, I’ve realized there are a lot of things I can do. Slowly I’m beginning to feel a lot better about myself."

Selby says the most important difference between conventional counseling and Hubbard’s approach is that talking with Hubbard "is more of a two-way conversation. It tends to be a one-way conversation when you speak with a regular psychologist or psychiatrist. You know ‘Tell me your life story." It’s nice to have some feedback like, "I know what you’re going through and here’s how I got through it, and here’s maybe what you can do.’"

Hubbard, who lives on Main Road in Tiverton, received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Massachusetts, and a master’s in clinical social work, in 1975, from Virginia Commonwealth University. He worked at several agencies before starting his own private practice in 1982.

Lacking instructive precedents in his latest venture, Hubbard says that much of the clinic’s policies and procedures are "still in the brainstorming stages." But he has no doubt that the services he intends to provide are badly needed.

"There are plenty of services around for disabled people, except those that serve their emotional and psychological needs, which is an equal or greater component of the total disability package," he said.