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This volume records the proceedings of the National Consultation Concerning Needed Research in the Behavioral Sciences and Humanities with Reference to Problems Related to Blindness, which was held from April 9 through 12, 1967. Like the title of the conference, the proceedings are not distinguished by a sparing of words. It
is therefore all the more disappointing that they include so little of a substantive nature. It is apparent that blindness in the adult is a vicissitude to which the victim responds according to his fashion. In the words of one participant, 'Those positively motivated for rehabilitation tended to reach out for and use services… The others made few observable overtures to rehabilitation agencies.' In effect the consensus of the speakers appears to be that the state of blindness when it has its onset in the adult or older child is a particularly trying and stressful trauma, but nonetheless a trauma to be coped with according to the genetic history and ego resources of the particular victim.
The distinctive characteristics of congenital blindness and the effects of this affliction on the process of differentiation of psychic structure, a problem which is of interest to many psychoanalysts, receives scant attention. A few scattered references in the text were apparently not considered of sufficient significance to merit separate indexing.
On the whole there is little about this publication which is likely to be of interest to the psychoanalyst. His approach to the blinded individual whether as a consultant or a therapist is not likely to be affected by what he reads. He can only agree with the statement of H. R. Blank, the only analyst on this program: '… psychological principles and their psychotherapeutic use to prevent and treat serious psychogenic disability applies to any handicap… [The] delineation of what is specific to a given handicap is hardly possible without knowing the generic predictables that can be anticipated in dealing w