Unseen Barriers: The Distress Model and the Third Wave of Disability Theory

This conceptual paper introduces the Distress Model as a necessary theoretical shift within disability studies, forming a Third Wave of disability theory. Building on but departing from the Social Model, it identifies four interlocking barriers: Scent Distress, Communication Management Distress, Cognitive Layering Distress, and Perception-Based Distress. These barriers function as mechanisms of exclusion that remain largely invisible within current access frameworks. Rooted in trauma, sensory injustice, and structural neglect, they help explain patterns of disengagement, silence, and mistrust that conventional models cannot address. Drawing on lived experience, postcolonial analysis, and policy critique, the paper reframes non-participation not as apathy, but as rational self-preservation. It argues for a reorientation of theory and practice to name and confront these forms of distress-based exclusion.