Purpose: This study, through adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability, aims to offer consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper draws insight from the interview data of a wider two-year interpretive research study investigating access barriers to marketplaces for consumers living with impairment.

Findings: The overarching contribution offers to consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment. Further contributions offered by this paper: i) unearth the emotion of fear to be central to manifestations of psycho-emotional disability, ii) reveal a broader understanding of the marketplace practices, and core perpetrators, that psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment, and iii) uncover psycho-emotional disability to extend beyond the context of impairment.

Originality/value: Extending current consumer research and consumer vulnerability research on disability, the empirical adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability is a fruitful framework for extrapolating insight into marketplace practices that internally oppress and psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment.

Practical implications: The insight offered into the precise marketplace practices that disable consumers living with impairment leads this paper to call for a revising of disability training within marketplace and service contexts.

Research limitations/implications: This study adopts a UK-only perspective. However, findings uncovered that the model of psycho-emotional disability has wider theoretical value to marketing and consumer research beyond the context of impairment.