You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Analytic observations of the psychic development of the blind open up the possibility of examining certain issues that deserve our theoretical interest. We know that vision plays an important role in normal development. Processes connected with vision have, in the form of Scoptophilia and exhibitionism, a place among the component instincts in the sexual life of men. The mechanism of identification is dependent on vision; most identifications occur on the basis of visual perceptions. Reality testing, one of the most important functions of the ego, makes extensive use of sight.
When this sense is lacking, the child lacks elements which seem indispensable to us to normal development. It is therefore worthwhile to follow the consequences which the lack of sight has, on the one hand, on sexual development and, on the other, on character formation. Lay opinion generally holds that the blind are very cheerful, most friendly, and un-aggressive, but that their love of truth is unreliable; whereas the deaf are said to be disagreeable, unfriendly, suspicious, and tending to paranoid ideas. Analytic investigation of character formation should enable us to determine whether these general statements are correct or not.
The lay opinion generally held about the blind, deriving for the most part from novels and fiction, is that although the blind have one sense less than the normal person, they compensate for this lack by having their other senses of touching, hearing and smelling more highly developed. It would therefore only be natural to take for granted that in the education of the blind every effort has been made to stimulate these other senses.
Astonishingly, however, this conclusion does not at all coincide with the facts. In reality, the blind child is brought up precisely like the sighted child. The teaching of reading by means of Braille, of writing on specially constructed boards, and of arithmetic with special counters is obviously an unavoidable exception. For the rest, t