Translated for the very first time in English, Invisible Differences is the deeply moving and intimate story of what it's like to live day to day with Asperger Syndrome. Marguerite feels awkward, struggling every day to stay productive at work and keep up appearances with friends. She's sensitive, irritable at times. She makes her environment a fluffy, comforting cocoon, alienating her boyfriend. The everyday noise and stimuli assaults her senses, the constant chatter of her coworkers working her last nerve. Then, when one big fight with her boyfriend finds her frustrated and dejected, Marguerite finally investigates the root of her discomfor: after a journey of tough conversations with her loved ones, doctors, and the internet, she discovers that she has Aspergers. Her life is profoundly changed – for the better.

This book provides an evidence-based guide to working with visible difference in therapeutic practice. It explores how appearance problems intersect with other concerns causing mental health issues and provides clear guidance on treatment plans and related topics. Visible difference is a bigger cause of mental distress than is often realised. One in five people have an appearance that is considered ‘different’ to the normal population. The category of ‘visible difference’, previously described as ‘disfigurement’ or simply ‘disability’ captures a range of conditions with varying aetiology, severity, and extent. Differences in appearance can be the result of a birth anomaly, or be caused later in life through illness, physical trauma, or behaviour. Whatever the cause, visible difference can have a negative effect on how individuals are perceived and view themselves. This timely work arrives at a moment of rising professional interest, due to the growth of social media use and the focus this puts on appearance (“the amplification of appearance bias”), and also influenced by the implications new research. The author draws on these findings together with her own research and practice to examine best practice and key issues in addressing visible difference. Particular consideration is given to establishing a good working therapeutic relationship. Whether a trainee, a recently qualified therapist, or an experienced professional wanting to broaden their understanding, this is the ideal text for anyone wanting to better understand this growing area of therapeutic practice.

This book explores how phenomenological ideas about embodiment, perception, and lived experience are discussed within disability studies, critical race theory, and queer studies. Building on these disciplines, it offers readings of memoirs and novels that address the consequences of stigmatization and the bodily dimensions of social differences. The texts include Robert F. Murphy’s The Body Silent, Simi Linton’s My Body Politic, Rod Michalko’s The Two-in-One: Walking with Smokie, Walking with Blindness, three memoirs by Stephen Kuusisto, Vincent O. Carter’s The Bern Book, as well as two novels, Matthew Griffin’s Hide and Armistead Maupin’s Maybe the Moon. All of the texts discussed in this book negotiate the significance of bodily and perceptual habits, the influence of language and culture on embodiment, the importance of relationality and community, the severe effects of misrecognition, and the possibilities of emancipation and social recognition. Hence, they are read as pioneering contributions to the emerging field of critical phenomenology.

This book can serve as a guide to effective management of a diverse workforce in a global context. It offers information on the new realities of the workforce, including demographic, legislation, and social policy trends around the world. It analyzes the causes and consequences of workforce exclusion, highlighting the groups commonly excluded in various countries. It provides a model of the 'inclusive workplace' suggesting policies, procedures, and programs that facilitates implementation. Gender is only one of the components of workplace diversity, but in many countries the share of women in the labor force is still rising. The book offers theory, statistics, examples and case studies.

Become more culturally competent in an increasingly diverse world Recent years have seen dramatic changes to several institutions worldwide. Our increasingly interconnected, digitized, and globalized world presents immense opportunities and unique challenges. Modern businesses and schools interact with individuals and organizations from a diverse range of cultural and national backgrounds—increasing the likelihood for miscommunication, errors in strategy, and unintended consequences in the process. This has also spilled into our daily lives and the way we consume information today. Understanding how to navigate these and other pitfalls requires adaptability, nuanced cross-cultural communication, and effective conflict resolution. Use Your Difference to Make a Difference provides readers with a skills-based, actionable plan that transforms differences into agents of inclusiveness, connection, and mutual understanding. This innovative and timely guide illustrates how to leverage differences to move beyond unconscious biases, manage a culturally-diverse workplace, create an environment for more tolerant schooling environments, more trusted media, communicate across borders, find and retain diverse talent, and bridge the gap between working locally and expanding globally. Expert guidance on a comprehensive range of topics—teamwork, leadership styles, information sharing, delegation, supervision, giving and receiving feedback, coaching and motivation, recruiting, managing suppliers and customers, and more—helps you manage the essential aspects of international relationships and cultural awareness. This valuable resource contains the indispensable knowledge required to: Develop self-awareness needed to be a cross-cultural communicator Develop content, messaging techniques, marketing plans, and business strategies that translate across cultural borders Help your employees to better understand and collaborate with clients and colleagues from different backgrounds Help teachers build safe environments for students to be themselves Strengthen cross-cultural competencies in yourself, your team, and your entire organization Understand the cultural, economic, and political factors surrounding our world Use Your Difference to Make a Difference is a must-have resource for any educator, parent, leader, manager, or team member of an organization that interacts with co-workers and customers from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Contributing a unique perspective to health reform, Negotiating Health Care presents the findings of a large qualitative investigation of the experiences of the chronically ill within today′s health care system. The author develops the argument that chronic illness and acute illness are social experiences of a vastly different order that lead to different health care consequences, especially in a health system geared to the "miracle cure." From interviews with chronically ill patients, Thorne discusses the onset of their diseases, handling acute episodes, and their attempts to normalize life. The author also examines the interpersonal experience with health care providers exploring the issues of trust, confidence, and compliance. The institutional experience can, and often does, pose daunting problems for the chronically ill because of organizational and sociocultural issues, health care politics and ideology, and the individual patient′s response to the system. In her concluding chapter, Thorne proposes future directions for health care organization, biomedical technology, and social policy. Students and professionals in the fields of nursing, allied health/medical sciences, and human services will find Negotiating Health Care a valuable resource. "This book is highly recommended for all health care professionals and anyone involved in legislation regarding chronic health care on a national basis. The book also could be very useful for lay people who are chronically ill and for their caregivers and families." --Rehabilitation Nursing "Finally, a window is opened to the experience of chronic illness as it exists within the North American health care system. Just in time. Every health care provider and reformer who looks inside will be changed by the reflections of themselves they see. This book is a courageous voice for both the bolder, more conclusive clinical research and for the chronically ill who may yet show us a better way." --William L. Miller, M.D., The University of Connecticut "Although there are a number of texts available on chronic illness, Dr. Thorne′s approach to the topic is unique in that it provides a graphic illustration of how the beliefs and values guiding the health care system contribute to problems which the chronically ill encounter in obtaining care. By setting the experience of chronic illness in the broader context of the health care system, the [book] provides some clear guidelines for needed changes, something I have not found elsewhere. . . . This is a valuable piece of work . . . which is a valuable contribution to our understanding of chronic illness and which provides a guide both to practice and to health policy revision." --Lee Walker, R.N., Ph.D., The University of Utah "This extraordinary book provides rich description and unique insights into the illness experience. Data obtained from interviews with 91 informants provides remarkable detail, strong linkages to existing theory, and powerful development of the illness trajectory. The book is well documented, methodologically rigorous, and presented in a refreshing style. Dr. Thorne has written a classic! Negotiating Health Care will become the book of the 90s for anyone interested in providing humanistic care." --Jan Morse, R.N., Ph.D., College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University "The book provides a view into the major issues adults with chronic illness experience in obtaining health care, a perspective that is rarely available to those of use who use the health care system mainly for acute problems, or indeed, who are the providers. The book is powerful, intense, and often uncomfortable reading; the ′patients′ own words should sensitize all of us who work with the chronically ill. Verbatim accounts of patients′ experiences are woven into a lucid and perceptive view of the structure and organization of Canadian health care, which should be read by health policymakers in all the western industrialized countries." --Juliene G. Lipson, Ph.D., F.A.A.N., University of California, San Francisco "Thorne takes a unique approach in providing a graphic illustration of how the beliefs and values guiding the health care system contribute to the problems the chronically ill encounter in obtaining care. . . . Those concerned with the evolving social and health policy in the United States would be well served in reading Negotiating Health Care." --Academic Library Book Review