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The Origin And Nature Of Our Institutional Models

From: Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded
Creator: Wolf Wolfensberger (author)
Date: January 10, 1969
Publisher: President's Committee on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C.
Source: Available at selected libraries

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The literature of the field is richly endowed with labels alluding to the alleged subhuman nature of the retarded. The term "garden variety," widely used by professionals in the field to refer to cultural-familial retardates, has definite vegetative connotations. It is interesting to note that the vegetable concept may, in part, have been derived from an inappropriate transfer of the medical concept of "vegetative functions." In medicine, the "vital functions" controlled by the autonomic nervous system and/or the hypothalamus may be referred to as "vegetative." These functions, which include temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate, etc., are possessed by all humans and most animal species, and yet the concept of vegetative functions appears to have been translated into the social context in such a way as to abrogate even the animal, not to mention human, qualities of a person.

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Luther, in describing what appears to have been a severely or profoundly retarded child, denied the child's humanity as follows: "Eight years ago, there was one at Dessau whom I, Martinus Luther, saw and grappled with. He was twelve years old, had the use of his eyes and all his senses, so that one might think that he was a normal child. But he did nothing but gorge himself as much as four peasants or threshers. He ate, defecated and drooled and, if anyone tackled him, he screamed. If things didn't go well, he wept. So I said to the Prince of Anhalt: 'If I were the Prince, I should take this child to the Moldau River which flows near Dessau and drown him.' But the Prince of Anhalt and the Prince of Saxony, who happened to be present, refused to follow my advice. Thereupon I said: 'Well, then the Christians shall order the Lord's Prayer to be said in church and pray that the dear Lord take the Devil away.' This was done daily in Dessau and the changeling died in the following year. When Luther was asked why he had made such a recommendation, he replied that he was firmly of the opinion that such changelings were merely a mass of flesh, a massa carnis, with no soul. For it is the Devil's power that he corrupts people who have reason and souls when he possesses them. The Devil sits in such changelings where their soul should have been!" (2)


(2) There are several versions of this account, derived from the various editions of Luther's Tabletalks, e.g., Luther's Works, Vol. 54, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1967, p. 396, and Aurifaber, Jr., Tischreden, Vol. 5, Weimar Edition, p. 9. In all editions the account is item No. 5207.

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Deutsch (1949) pointed out that by some peculiar twist of logic, the mentally ill were often apt to be stripped of their human attributes, together with their rights and privileges as human beings. Obviously, it is even easier to dehumanize a person who never possessed much reason if one dehumanizes him who had reason but lost it. The idea that the mentally afflicted lack sensory acuity, e.g., that they are insensitive to heat and cold, was popular into the mid 1800's (Deutsch, 1949). This myth resulted in their often being denied heat during the winter in the cold cells of institutions, and may well have contributed to the image of the retardate as an insensate vegetable. To this day, retardates, like army recruits, may be said to need "being broken" or tamed, like horses or wild beasts. Just recently (Atlantic Monthly. October 1967, p. 49) a reader called for the "... sacrifice of mentally defective humans, or human vegetables..." to provide organ transplants and "...increase the intellectual betterment of mankind..." Dehumanization of the retardate is so accepted, even to this day, and even by workers in our own field, that we witness a public statement by a contemporary superintendent of a State institution referring to retardates as "...so-called human beings..." "below what we might call an animal level of functioning..." (Frontiers of Hospital Psychiatry. 1968, 5, 5-6).

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The atmosphere and design of a residential facility can very clearly express an expectancy that the resident will behave in a subhuman fashion -- no matter how vociferously the staff may deny adherence to dehumanizing attitudes. Such expectancies are implicit in any of virtually hundreds of dehumanizing practices encountered in institutions and enumerated by Vail (1966). Some of the more common expectancies will be listed and briefly elucidated here.

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1. The perception of the retardate as an animal usually implies an expectation that he behave in a primitive, uncontrolled fashion. Thus, the environment is designed to be "abuse-resistant," which implies measures such as:

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(a) Walls, floors, etc., made of material that is indestructible.

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(b) Unbreakable, shatterproof or wire-enmeshed glass in windows and partitions.

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(c) Installation of the sturdiest, most heavy-duty furniture and equipment.

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(d) Minimization of moving parts.

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(e) High ceilings with recessed or specially shielded or laminated light fixtures, to minimize damage due to throwing of objects.

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