Disability, Blindness, and Mental Health: Exploring Narratives, Messages and Meanings

3 CEUs - may be counted as Clinical or Cultural Responsiveness

Friday, 1/24/25  9am - 12pm CST via Zoom

Presenter: Ann M. Wagner, PhD, LP, ABPP, Board-Certified Clinical Psychologist

3 CEUs - may be counted as Clinical or Cultural Responsiveness

Most mental health providers can expect to work with a client experiencing vision loss at some point in their career. Many people with blindness, and their sighted helpers, experience complex grief, anxiety and/or depression. They may seek therapy to adjust to their vision changes, or for reasons unrelated to vision loss. In this webinar, we will use Narrative Therapy principles to enhance providers’ sense of confidence and to promote the personal agency of their clients.

An estimated 2.2 billion (nearly 1 in 4) people worldwide experience, or are at risk for,  vision loss or blindness, and their numbers are expected to increase as people live longer. Chances are high that most mental health providers will at some point in their careers work with a client experiencing vision loss. Many providers may feel unprepared. Whether sighted or not, all people have been exposed to societal messages and myths about blindness. Many people with blindness experience complex grief, anxiety and/or depression. They may seek therapy to adjust to their vision changes, but they may also seek therapy for reasons unrelated to vision loss.

In this webinar, we will use Narrative therapy principles as a guide to explore messages, meanings, myths, dilemmas, and stories/narratives of people with vision loss as well as some experiences of sighted helpers. No single person can speak for all others, so the ideas presented in this webinar are intended to foster contemplation and not to be viewed as hard-and-fast “dos and don’ts” when working with clients with vision loss. Use of narrative therapy principles, it is hoped, will help guide an experiential discovery of new meanings and ideas that providers can carry forward to enhance their sense of confidence as well as the personal agency of the client, whether the work is about the blindness, not about the blindness, or a bit of both. The concepts reviewed in this webinar may also apply to working with people experiencing other types of disability.

Learning Objectives:  

1. Describe risk factors associated with anxiety and/or depression for people experiencing vision loss/blindness or other disabilities.

2. Identify at least one message or bias about blindness that comes from broader culture and society.

3. Distinguish between the medical model of disability and the social model of disability.

4. Describe some values associated with the dilemma of a sighted helper offering unsolicited assistance to a person with blindness.

5. Name at least one principle of Narrative Therapy that might be integrated into clinical work to enhance the personal agency of clients with vision loss.

6. Experience enhanced learning by observing a demonstration of a conversation integrating principles of Narrative Therapy to explore messages and meanings related to blindness.

About the Presenter

Dr. Ann Wagner is a Board-Certified Clinical Psychologist. She worked for 26 years on the PTSD Clinical Team at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System and has expertise in empirically supported interventions for the treatment of PTSD and other trauma-related problems. Though retired, she is professionally active as a consultant and invited guest speaker on a variety of topics, including mental health and vision loss. Dr. Wagner is blind due to retinitis pigmentosa (RP), an inherited eye condition known for progressive night blindness and tunnel vision. She has delivered local and national presentations including for the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the American Macular Degeneration Foundation on the topics of complex grief, anxiety, depression, and resiliency related to vision loss or serving in a helper role. She welcomes curiosity and questions about RP.   

Pricing and Registration

NASW Student/Retired Member $30

NASW Member $45

Not-Yet-Member $75

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