ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a model of psychological adjustment to chronic disease, and provides substantial recommendations to further the research. In a review of various conceptual models of disability, including the modern International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), Elizabeth Badley pays particular attention to the contextual factors concerning disability. The relation between the scene-setter or the platform of action, on the one hand, and a person's ability or disability. On the other, is different from the causal relation between the environment and the person, where the environment causes a disease or an impairment and as a result limits the person's range of activities. Mainstream doctors have been influenced by traditional ontological conceptions of disease and have been looking for "the germ" or, nowadays, "the particular gene" that can account for disease specificity in the area of chronic diseases.
