The psychotherapeutic needs of the learning disabled and multiply disabled child

It has been an historic triumph that in the last decade of the twentieth century we can agree that learning disabled children have psychotherapeutic needs. The Anna Freud Clinic has long upheld the treatment needs of blind children (Burlingham 1963; Wills 1968) or diabetic children (Fonagy et al. 1989), whilst individual analysts or child psychotherapists have underlined the therapeutic needs of severely deprived children (Boston and Szur 1983), autistic children (Tustin 1991; Reid 1991; Alvarez 1992), physically disabled (Fraiberg 1977; Hoxter 1986) or dying children (Judd 1989).