English

edit

Etymology

edit

Coined by writer and disability advocate Christine Miserandino in a 2003 blog post recounting an incident in which she explained living with lupus to a friend in a diner by gathering spoons from other tables to serve as visual props for a metaphor.[1]

Noun

edit
 
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

spoon theory (uncountable)

  1. An informal metaphor for chronic illness or disability that uses "spoons" to represent the finite units of physical and mental energy that a person has available for daily tasks.
edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Miserandino, Christine (2003) “The Spoon Theory”, in But You Don't Look Sick[1], archived from the original on 17 November 2019