Psihološka Obzorja (Aug 2011)
Psychotherapy with people with developmental disabilities
Abstract
People with developmental disabilities can experience any psychological abnormalitiy and psychiatric illness as do people without developmental disabilities. Due to different diagnostic criteria, assessment procedures and instruments, we lack definite prevalence rates for people with developmental disabilities, also suffering from mental health problems, eventhough most studies place the rate at 20 to 40%. One of the possible treatment alternatives for augmenting psychological well-being is psychotherapy, but is extremely rarely used for people with severe and profound disabilities, where speech cannot be the main therapeutic medium. So, those that are included in the psychotherapuetic process are predominantly clients with mild developmental disabilities, and they are mostly in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Recently, two models of (psycho)therapy for persons with severe and profound developmental disabilities were developed: developmental-dynamic relationship therapy and attachment-based behaviour therapy for children. Conceptually, they both originate form developmental psychoanalytic theories.
