Enduring Horror: Psychotherapy with Monsters

‘I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt’

Those of you reading this progressive journal will probably know, perhaps more than others, some of the social history of people with learning disabilities. This is a history that may become forgotten. You may remember these people from the time when they were the mentally handicapped, the mentally defective and the mentally retarded. Or perhaps, you recall the use of schooldays insults like ‘retard’, ‘mong’, and others. But, before our own enlightened age, the helping professions and others used to refer to people as ‘imbeciles’ and ‘idiots’ (Ireland, 1877; Bateman, 1897), or sometimes as sub-humans and monsters (Locke, 1690; Watson, 1692). It is unlikely that any malignity was intended consciously. Yet, over time, the underlying hatred and horror, which we see now in the history of people's despicable social treatment, seeped into the words that were used to delineate people. Thus, as with other groups that have experienced profound and enduring discrimination, the words used to refer to these people have changed. However, although there is within this new language the expression of a new social recognition and position that has been hard fought for, the fact remains that for many people with learning disabilities, the old relational models of monstrosity, which were