Last Updated on April 28, 2014 by FERS Disability Attorney
Perceptual selectivity is an adaptive process of some evolutionary benefits; otherwise, the voluminous extent of bombarding stimuli would be too much to process and digest. We naturally focus upon certain perceptual activities; perhaps it is the brighter colors, the more aggressive movements, the objects which seem to portend potential threats, etc. In modern societies, where attacking cougars and lions are merely mythological stories of the past (except perhaps out West, where such events still abound), selective excision occurs more often in the context of linguistic extraction.
For Federal and Postal Workers who file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, the process of selective extrapolation and argumentation can be a frustrating encounter when a denial of one’s Federal Disability Retirement application is issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management at the initial stage of the process (and even at the Reconsideration Stage).
It is indicative of the decision-maker’s mindset, and not necessarily as a consequence of the proof submitted. There may be quotations extracted from medical reports and records seemingly supportive of a denial, while all the time ignoring countervailing wording and opinions which contradict or otherwise reverse the unsupportive statements.
Selectivity in the endeavor to find support for one’s position is simply something that people do. You may cry out, “But where is the objectivity which is supposed to exist?” Objectivity is a learned process, achieved through discipline and intellectually rigorous self-effacement; selective bias, on the other hand, is the natural default position resulting from the evolutionary vestiges of man’s former state of existence. The residue of man’s natural state will always remain; but with the camouflage of sophistication presented in modern society, selectivity of purpose can mask our former state of brutish behavior.
For those encountering such selective processes in a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the road to counter it is to argue the compendium of fact, law and full context of medical opinions, in preparing a full counterattack representing a viable refutation. In the end, the attempt at selectivity of facts and the law can easily be rebutted; but it often takes an awakening of the other’s evolutionary tendencies — of a potential threat of stimuli through the aggressive use of the law — which will result in a victory via an award of one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire