The Psychology of Idiocy

In the application of metapsychology towards an understanding of amentia we have of course come upon those maximum states of mental arrest where even an enlightened training treatment can hope for little therapeutic success. Our major attention, therefore, has turned to the insight such studies may give us into the beginnings of development within the mind. What are the chief obstacles which the individual must overcome in his progress from complete helplessness to mature intelligence? If idiocy represents a fixation on the lowest stages of progress, what may we learn of this “ancient past” so significant, possibly, in the psychic life of every human being ?

A detailed discussion of mental development, as such, has been presented elsewhere. Our formulation suggested that intelligence is the capacity for acquiring, absorbing, and using knowledge for a mastery of or adaptation to reality. It was inferred that this is a process by which the ego gains increased power, and that it depends largely on the capacity for making identifications with persons and things in the outer world. By means of the latter, new mannerisms and methods are introjected within the original pattern, and new understandings are fused into the mental equipment. The projection of these acquired substances into further experiencing and testing serves to solidify the identification and complete the absorption within the ego.

The ego's capacity for carrying out the process must certainly depend greatly upon its original endowment. One of the major tasks of the ego involves the function of gathering the many diverse elements and experiences of the total psyche, and of bringing about a synthesis within the personality. If the ego is inherently lacking in the potentiality for this function, it seems probable that its assimilation of new contacts and new experiences will tend to fail, and obviously mental development will proceed under an initial handicap. Moreover, an ego which is fundamentally weak would