Intellectual Disability, Care, and Shared Lives Worth Living

This paper is a commentary on Joel Michael Reynold's phenomenological theories of pain and disability. The first part of the paper examines his discussions of pain and suffering in the context of intellectual disability. The second part consdiers how his phenomenology of chronic pain, and specifically the notions of bioreckoning, beholdenness, foreboding and disruption, are applicable to caregivers and caregiving systems. It then looks at how these features might also apply to the experience of genetic testing. The paper concludes with some reflections on the boundaries of disability and creating worlds.