Psychological and Social Implications of Visual Impairment – I

Introduction:
Blind people or people who have low vision are forced face the challenges
that are presented in the social sphere as well as undertake several
psychological pressures. The demands of the life and constant stresses of the
modern lifestyle take a toll on their psychosocial status.

The differences in the family set up in which a blind person is brought up

combined with the educational and social differences causes a major
difference in the so called psychosocial adjustment sphere. It’s understood
that the level of adjustment greatly depends on the individual himself. A lot of
study and detailed discussions lets us to assume that the visually impaired
have different levels of adjustment to social and psychological challenges,
which is often made possible through proper intervention of the family and
friends.

The self-esteem and a positive attitude instilled at an early age into the minds
of the blind infidel goes a long way in better socio psycho adjustment, thereby
enabling the blind person to live the life to the fullest.

Individual differences and psychosocial adjustment

The time of the onset of visual impairment acts as major factor in determining
the individual’s acceptance level. It’s seen that people who are born blind are
much more adaptive to social conditions than those who have lost their sight
after some illness or accident. The reason can be attributed to the fact that the
person born blind are able to accept the fact since they never know the
importance of vision. Whereas in case of the people who had good vision but
during their lifetime, lose the vision may have to face the mental trauma and
depression.

Losing something that we have is much difficult to accept than not having
something. A sudden loss of the vision causes a complete shock in the mind
of the individual and also his family. He may not be able to come to common
terms for quite some time and this delays his development process.

Such individuals are often found to shell themselves by not communicating

with the external world due to their inability to do so. The person born blind
does not know how the world looks like and so his imaginary skills help him to
overcome the pressures of life. He is open to adapt to the world and learns
things as if it’s the right way to do. He is under the assumption that other
people are also like him and so there are not strong barriers as compare to
the person who lost his vision much later in his life.

An individual’s ability to cope with such unexpected events and courage to get
back to normalcy all directly affects his social participation. The psychological
state of mind also greatly differs for visually impaired people. Those who lose
their vision at a later stage of their life, feel a sense of aversion from the
society. The reason can be due to the fact that they have seen the world and
the different type of people. They can imagine the societal ignorance towards
blind people which again cause severe psychological disturbances. Such
pressures act as a hindrance in their social communication.

Many people who lose their vision after some mishap often take a lot of time
to get back to their normalcy. They are not able to accept the loss of vision
and lead a very isolated life. They try to get away from their older friends due
to their fear of non-acceptance. Despite the continuous support of their family
and friends very many visually disabled individuals try to live their life within
their closed circle of friends. They are not ready to attempt anything new
because of their sense of fear and insecurity. Sudden plunge of darkness in
their life creates complete disappointment leading to cases of extreme
depression. This also puts lot of pressure on the family of many individuals
who are also unaware of the ways to cope up with the current situation.
The way the blind adjust to the social environment is completely an individual
perspective and it’s not possible to generalise the condition. Every individual’s
power of resistance and tolerance and also the support of the family and
friends are all the factors that decide a visually disabled individual’s
psychosocial adjustment.

Difficulties in social classification of the blind

The identity of a person is often perceived through his frequent interactions
with friends, family and relatives. Social community provides opportunities to
show an individual’s self-esteem and identity development. The behaviour of
an individual is also guided by the society in which he lives and the
community to which he belongs. People involved in several type of
communication which includes a combination of verbal and non-verbal. Facial
expression also forms a major form of communication.

For a visually impaired individual such interaction is not possible due to his
reliance on the auditory as well as tactile communication. This again acts as a
major hindrance as people with no vision often mistake the true identity of an
individual. Voice communication may not always help a person to decide the
identity of another person. Sighted people often understand and form an
opinion about another person by combining the body language, facial
gestures, visual appearance and communication methods. Based on such
several attributes a person forms an opinion about other person.

Visually impaired people are not able to effectively do so because they can’t
be provided with complete auditory clues to form such opinions. So the
opinions formed by them lack the completeness that is provided by visuals.
Yet another factor is the social acceptance of the visually impaired. The levels
of vision impairment are also heterogeneous. There are multiple types of
vision impairment that affects different degrees of vision. Some are
completely blind while some have low vision. So, it’s not possible to
categorise all the visually impaired into one social class. Depending upon the
levels of impairment their social interaction also differs.

Some people also have a vision loss only to one eye which affects their
reading skills but they can do their daily living activities at ease. Mobility is
also not affected for such people. But, they do come under the category of
visually impaired. Some people misunderstand them to be pretending and fine
form wrong opinions.

So, common sighted man believes that only people wearing dark glasses are
reliable and those with no such glasses are often looked upon with mistrust
and suspicion. The ignorance on the part of such sighted individuals leads
them to behave indifferently to such class of visually impaired people causing
a low psychological state of mind. It also affects their social interaction skills
leading to complete aversion from the society.

The reverse can also have a drastic impact on the self-esteem of the person
with visual impairment. A person who has low vision may be often classified
as blind by many sighted individuals of the society. This also affects the
mental state of the person with low vision as the reality is completely deterred.
Proper classification of the visually impaired as low vision, residual vision,
born blind and so on enables in better development of the people.

Social classification plays a vital role in the proper moulding of the child with
visual disability as this boosts up the confidence and enables the parents to
provide the right type of social environment to the child. Society and its
ignorance can often pose a barrier for proper development of the visually
impaired in terms of social and psychological status.

Self-esteem for visually disabled

The self-esteem concept is often discussed as many people are under the
misconception that visually impaired lack in self-esteem. But, studies have
revealed that blind people also have high self-esteem just like their sighted
peers. There is no impact of visual disability on the self-esteem of an
individual which is more of a psychological state. However, there were
differences in the perception of self-esteem between the blind and the people
with low vision. But, society considers both under the same social class and
ignores the concept of residual vision.

Many of the parents of the children with low vision are lesser supportive and
unable to understand their child’s status. This is when compared to the
parents of children who are complete blind. As a result of this people with
lower vision tend to show lower trend of behaviour and undergo more of
emotional issues. The people with low vision or complete loss of vision had
similar kind of self-esteem, which is usually high.

The social interaction enables the sighted people to have wider social circles
and their network of friends and relatives is much wider. As a result they
exhibit higher degrees of happiness in the social environment through their
sharing and caring. Studies have also revealed that the people with low or no
vision do not differ much in this perspective. Such people though do not have
wider social network, but they are quite happy with the support received from
their immediate circle of family and friends. Family is the first contact for
people with visual disability and that seems to satisfy their social necessity
thereby giving them the required support and guidance.

Self-concept can be understood in simple terms as set of rules and attitudes

that an individuals will define about them. This creates a unique identity for
every individual and subsequently creates self-esteem. The concept of self-
esteem also paves the way for creation of rules for behaviour that forms an
impression in the minds of the onlookers about the individual. The self-esteem
and the corresponding behaviour have a direct impact on the personal and
social spheres of an individual.

Self-esteem and its level in case of the visually impaired depend on the ability
of the individual to accept the disability. Visually impaired must develop a
positive self-concept so that they can lead a successful social life. Positive in
this pretext means the ability to perform the daily living skills and an attitude to
accept the disability and live with it and face the challenges of life with
confidence.

If the individual with visual disability is unable to accept his real situation then
there are chances of developing a negative self-esteem. This creates a sense
of detachment and thereby he completely cut off from his social environment
for fear of rejection. When the visually impaired are often shown sympathy
and pitied, they get dejected. This also becomes a basis for depression and
other mental problems. They are under the impression that their sighted peers
may not be able to accept them. Such conditions lead to complete
detachment and lack of social interaction.
Similarly, many of the personal emotions like love and marriage begins with
external appearances. Body language and looks plays a major role in the
concept of impression making. Blind people imagine themselves to be ugly or
disfigured due to their lack of vision. They feel they are unattractive and so it
again adds to the negative self-esteem.

Timely support and intervention form the family can to a greater extent help
the visually impaired from getting into such negative feeling.

Orientation Problems and issues faced by the blind

Loss of vision is a very dejecting condition that an individual faces. A blind

person suffers from both emotional and social implications that not only affect
him but also his family. People born blind, to some extent are able to cope up
with the medical condition and try to live with it. But, people who have lost
their vision after any serious illness or accidents experience a total
changeover of their life. Such people are more vulnerable to issues of
psychosocial adjustments.

Vision provides the direction for an individual in terms of mobility. When a

person lacks vision he is completely at the mercy of his auditory and tactile
senses. Such auditory and tactile clues come with limitations and cannot
completely replace the visual clues. Mobility is very much affected for blind
people as they cannot get a spatial knowledge of their surroundings. This
creates a sense of fear and insecurity. This is much higher in case of people
who have lost their vision at a later stage of their life.

People born blind also suffer from restricted mobility but since they do not
know their social surroundings and have never got a chance to view them,
actually seems to be a blessing in disguise. But for people, who lost their
vision due to accidents, know their surroundings and so may take time to get
adjusted to their medical state.

Visually impaired people need the help and guidance of their family and peers
to move. So, this acts an s a barrier for their mobility as they may feel ignored
at times. Their heavy dependence on their peers may also create a negative
feeling in their minds leading to depression. That’s the reason many of the
visually impaired people restrict their communication and social interaction.
Social contacts also creates embarrassing situation even for the sighted
people when they get to meet blind people. Sighted people do not know the
way to communicate with the blind and this discourages them from involving
in any kind of communication. Blind people are also able to feel this
embarrassment and so make the situation all the more uncomfortable.
The general attitude by the sighted people towards blind is that of sympathy
and pity. These actually create a sense of embarrassment in the minds of the
blind. They feel that they can never fit into the society and such pitied
approaches made by the sighted people causes emotional outburst amongst
the blind. Isolation is the end result of such situations which drastically affects
the psychological state of the blind.

Even the conversation tends to be limited as the sighted often make use of
facial expressions and other gestures to communicate their ideas and
opinions. Blind people cannot interpret such expressions and only the auditory
and tactile clues are grasped by them. However, it’s not possible for the
sighted to completely express their feelings through auditory clues. The
different emotions that can be intercepted into the conversation are quite
restricted and so long pauses and silences make the conversation
embarrassing. Spontaneous conversation is often missing and thus many
sighted people do not come forward to converse with the blind.

Psychological Issues faced by the Blind

The psychological state of the blind tends to be very sensitive. This can be
differentiated between the people who are born blind and those who have lost
their vision in an accident or illness. The people born blind are kind of
accustomed to their condition but still as they grow older they understand their
external environment. Their disability poses a serious problem for their social
interaction. They become sensitive to people and their feelings towards them.
People who lose their vision in an accident come under lot of psychological
pressure. They have to not only face the challenge of vision loss but also the
trauma that usually persist after an accident or any mishap. They may take
time to digest the fact that they have indeed lost their vision. All these years
they were able to see the world with lot of admiration and they know how
things look like and how they work and how people look like and so on.
Sudden loss of vision puts them in complete darkness, unable to visualise
anything. All these years their eyes were their guide in everything they do.
But, after the loss of their eyesight they must rely on other means of
communication. Spatial knowledge could have been developed to some
extent which again depends on the age of the onset of blindness in an
individual. The mobility factor greatly affects the individual. All these years the
individual had been independent to move around and do his daily living skills
without any support system. But, now he has to depend on his family or
friends for everything.

This dependence may cause anxiety and depression in their minds. They may
feel a kind of bitterness for having been affected by such a mishap. If it’s due
to illness that they lost their eyesight then they will start cursing their fate.
Such emotional outbursts are quite common among such visually impaired
people. This is the way they vent out their psychological feelings.

Feeling of inferiority complex is common among all kinds of visually impaired

people. Be it the people who are born blind or people who lost vision due to
accidents, they start comparing themselves to their sighted peers. Such
comparison creates a feeling of inferiority thereby causing negative vibrations
in their mind.

Besides, the feeling of denial in the social sphere adds to their psychological
worries causing greater depression and disappointment. The psychological
issues of the blind are many and their ways to express comes in different
forms like anger, violent behaviours, isolation, and inability to interact with
friends and so on. They rely on their family support in every way.

Conclusion

Visually impaired face a lot psychological and social problems. Their loss of
vision is often sympathised by the sighted people. But, does the blind expect
such sympathy? Many studies have revealed that the self-esteem of the blind
is the same as that of the sighted person. So, it truly holds well that the blind
do not expect sympathy as it causes more embarrassment. Their need of
acceptance is felt much more rather than the need of sympathy and pity.

Social interactions can be made much more effective with the implementation
of several intervention techniques as a lot of progress has been made in this
sphere. Proper intervention at the right time may help the visually impaired in
leading a high esteemed life. For this support of the family, teachers and the
friends form the top priority.