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There was a time when people with learning difficulties (mental handicap) were put into institutions. It was assumed that if they could not think they could not feel. Their lack of a time concept guarded them against guilt about yesterday and worry about tomorrow.
In this book, the author, a principal psychotherapist from the Tavistock Centre, takes us on a very different journey and one that no-one has taken before. She shows through her work, teaching, and research that the lives of people with learning difficulties, however severe, and however hurt they are, can be transformed.
This needs new thinking and understanding by those around them based on traditional psychoanalytical concepts. For the lucky few, this help may come through psychotherapy treatment sessions, but for others there may be the chance to live in an environment, enriched by a greater understanding of their inner world and more sympathy for their psychological needs.
This book is a tour de force, encompassing case-histories that illustrate the need that some have to be ‘stupid’ to guard against further hurt. Self-injury, loss, sexuality, and, above all, abuse of all kinds, are addressed — from the therapy room, from history, and from the poets, of whom Sinason is one.
I read this book and I shall never be the same. I began to feel educated at last, validated in part, but above all hungry for more. This is more than a text-book, it is a personal experience shared unstintingly with the reader. You will not be disappointed.