ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses material that throws up challenges facing clinicians, whether or not they work with the intellectually disabled and those with autism. It aims to demonstrate the use of Estela Welldon theories in trying to understand the actions, the motivations, and the genesis of the failures in mothering and fathering in some intellectually disabled patients. By focusing on forensic issues and on the trauma and loss that is at the heart of people with intellectual disability experiences, it is possible to view the wide-ranging psychological impact of intellectual disabilities on individuals, families, and society. Society has a need to maintain the illusion of homeostasis, with the intellectually disabled becoming the receptacles for disavowed feelings of inferiority and of the fear of becoming disabled. The intersection of intellectual disability and perversion is one that continues to throw up new ways in which individuals try to gain mastery over unconscious processes that provide respite from unbearable feelings of anxiety.
