INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES ÓAAIDD 2017, Vol. 55, No. 3, 181–191 DOI: 10.1352/1934-9556-55.3.181 Rights-Based and Person-Centered Approaches to Supporting People With Intellectual Disability: A Dialectical Model Stephen Glicksman, Chaim Goldberg, Corey Hamel, Ryan Shore, Avraham Wein, Daniel Wood, and Joseph Zummo Abstract Protecting human rights has increasingly become a focus of regulation regarding individuals with Intellectual Disability (ID). While this focus on rights has succeeded in protecting people with ID from many of the most insidious abuses of the past, an over-emphasis on the human rights of people with ID while ignoring other aspects of their personalities and environments can create challenges. This article proposes the use of a dialectical model to address challenges raised by the relationship between two equally valid but often unequally considered approaches, namely, rights-based and person-centered. Suggestions are provided for using this model to meaningfully support individuals to reach their person-centered goals while continuing to recognize and address their individual rights, responsibilities, and challenges. Key Words: rights-based; person-centered; intellectual disability; dialectics In philosophy, dialectics describes a method of exposition that weighs opposing facts or ideas with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions (Hegel, 1991). In psychology, the dialectal model has been used to assist individuals in finding a productive middle ground between two valid concepts which, taken in their extremes, are often counterproductive to effective functioning (e.g., self-acceptance versus change, novelty versus predictability, or caring for others versus maintain- ing boundaries; Linehan, 2014; Pederson & Peder- son, 2012). In dialectical theory, neither side of the dialectic is ‘‘wrong’’, and no conflict is as black and white as it first may seem. Rather, each side of the dialectic is viewed as containing a kernel of its opposite, meaning it is at the very moment of exclusive focus on one side of the dialectic that the need for focusing on the other side emerges as a way of balance. The aim of intervention in the dialectical approach is to find an appropriate middle ground that allows individuals to live full and productive lives (Pederson & Pederson, 2012). In the field of intellectual disability (ID), dialectics can be observed in almost every aspect of a person’s life; in education, the values of mainstreaming are often pitted against the benefits of specialized instruction. In residences, the man- date to protect is often weighed against the dignity of risk. In families, personal choice often rubs against family values or concerns, particularly as people with disabilities reach adulthood and attempt to live lives independent of their families of origin. One dialectic that in today’s climate we believe warrants a deeper analysis is that of ‘‘rights-based’’ versus ‘‘person-centered’’ approach- es to service provision. The aim of this analysis (like that of all dialectical analyses) is not to argue the merits of one approach over the other; rather, it is an attempt to formulate a middle ground between these two approaches based on our belief that a current regulatory emphasis on the rights of individuals with ID often comes, however inadver- tently, at the expense of supporting people to meet their person-centered objectives and live full, productive, and included lives. Furthermore, we assert that the reason for the current state of affairs is a tendency of some to over-equate the rights- based and person-centered perspectives, seeing them as identical or ‘‘two sides of the same coin’’ rather than as two equally important but somewhat conflicting sides of a dialectic. In other words, because current thought rightfully recognizes the validity of both rights-based and person-centered S. Glicksman et al. 181