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presented by Jay Crosby, PhD
This paper introduces the concept of the disabling object — a persecutory internal structure through which social prejudice and structural ableism are psychically internalized and perpetuated. Drawing on object relations theory, critical disability studies, and the psychoanalytic field tradition, Dr. Crosby describes how the disabling object operates simultaneously as a psychic structure organized by ableist social content, a clinical phenomenon recognizable in specific disruptions of analytic thinking and countertransference, and a disturbance generated between analyst and patient when the pain of disability cannot be borne. The concept is situated in relation to existing psychoanalytic formulations of persecutory superego functioning, internalized prejudice, and attacks on symbolization, while articulating what is distinctive about ableism as a psychic organizer: its proximity to universal vulnerability and the aggressive foreclosure of dependency it demands. Clinical and autobiographical vignettes illustrate how the disabling object operates within and between minds, and how analysts must confront internalized ableism to sustain contact with psychic pain and difference as generative rather than annihilating.