Catastrophe, Chaos, and Complexity Models and Psychosocial Adjustment to Disability

Abstract

Rehabilitation professionals may unknowingly rely on stereotypes and specious beliefs when dealing with people with disabilities. One such belief is that an individual's adjustment to disability proceeds through well-defined stages or phases. Literally hundreds of publications based primarily on clinical observations promote various stage or phase theories of psychosocial adjustment to chronic illness and disability despite contradictory empirical findings. Developments in mathematics, physics, biology, economics, and psychology over the last four decades, however, have led to the formulation of theories that suggest new models of the adjustment process. Specifically, we believe Catastrophe, Chaos, and Complexity Theories hold considerable promise in this regard, and yet these theories have received relatively little attention in the rehabilitation research literature. The purpose of this article is to review these theories and suggest applications in adjustment to chronic illness and disability.