ABSTRACT
In this chapter I discuss what I have come to feel is a significant factor in the psychotherapeutic treatment of some young people with learning disabilities. It is a factor that can affect the nature of the transference relationship in a negative way. If it is not understood and interpreted by the therapist, it can impede the patient’s capacity to learn through experience from the process of therapy itself. If the therapist is felt by the patient to have a secretly harsh, critical, or judgemental attitude towards those with learning disabilities, the patient will tend to placate the therapist or conform to what he or she feels is being expected in a self-protective or defensive manner.
