Psychoanalysis/Psychotherapy and Developmental Disability
December 5, 2004

Autoimmune illnesses, cancer, heart disease, etc, are all worsened by a sense of despair, isolation, depression, profound anxiety, etc. Psychotherapy (as demonstrated in melanoma and breast cancer patients, etc) can lead to a better quality of life and even greater longevity. In regard to pervasive developmental delay, Valerie Sinason, poet & psychotherapist and ISPS member, has published on her work at the Tavistock, "Mental Handicap and the Human Condition" (1992). My own observations are that with some individuals, severe autistic defenses can seriously impede cognitive development/functioning. Maud Mannoni wrote her impressive volume "The Backward Child and His Mother" in 1972. Freud's (Three Essays on the Theory of Human Sexuality) quote has some relevance to what I am trying to convey here:

"Auntie, speak to me! I'm frightened because it's so dark. What good will that do. You can't see me. That doesn't matter; if anyone speaks, it gets light."

A group of psychoanalysts have been meeting in Europe ( Belgium , Paris ) for several day conferences to exchange ideas about psychoanalysis, therapeutic community and pervasive developmental delay and mental handicap. One interesting collection of these papers can be found in "Psychoanalysis and Mental Handicap" edited by Johan De Groef and Evelyn Heinemann in 1999 for Free Association Books.

Brian Koehler PhD
New York University
80 East 11th Street #339
New York NY 10003
brian_koehler@psychoanalysis.net
212.533.5687