ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a description of a successful peer counseling training program for disabled women, offered in a community-based self-help organization. The program provides both training in peer counseling skills and a personal growth experience. The concerns of disabled women are unique and deserve special consideration. The cultural interactions between sexism and the oppression of disabled persons serve to reinforce each other in the personality of the individual. The disabled individual faces many psychological adjustments. Unfortunately, this is often made considerably more difficult by the social and attitudinal barriers which the disabled person is likely to encounter among family, friends, and others. A peer counselor is in a unique position to assist another disabled person in dealing with life issues. Peer counseling is a process by which one person is helped by another person who has had similar or related experiences.
