"Why should I bother with my body," said Martin, a cerebral palsy victim and a brilliant student, "when it is so much easier to work with my mind?" Ellen, another patient, had a slight limp caused by a spinal injury at the age of two. It did not prevent her walking indoors, but she insisted: "I just can't cross the street." And Mr. Juskalian, a paraplegic, kept the hospital in an uproar by being disagreeable to everybody.
All these people, in varying degrees, were physically handicapped. But their worst trouble did not lie in...