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Mental Retardation: A Psychiatric Perspective

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Contemporary Psychiatry

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Abstract

This past century has seen dramatic changes in almost every aspect of the lives of people with mental retardation. Among the most striking are the attitudes of society and the changing philosophy away from segregation towards integration. Equally as striking have been those advances in fields such as cytogenetics, molecular genetics and teratology that have enabled some of the causes of mental retardation to be identified. These two examples, taken from the diverse fields of the social and biological, vividly illustrate how significant this change has been. In the early 1900s, the eugenics movement was a powerful force and genetic theories were used to justify what are now seen as harsh and inhumane attitudes. Equally, biological knowledge was in its infancy. Inborn errors of metabolism were only just beginning to be investigated, and the human chromosome complement was a long way off being described.

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Authors
  1. A. J. Holland
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit, P.O. Box 12 21 20, 68072, Mannheim, Germany

    Fritz Henn

  2. Belle-Idée, Bâtiment Salève, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève, 2, chemin du Petit-Bel-Air, 1225, Chêne-Bourg/Genève, Switzerland

    Norman Sartorius

  3. Psychiatrische Klinik, Freie Universität Berlin, Eschenallee 3, 14050, Berlin, Germany

    Hanfried Helmchen

  4. Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Ismaninger Straße 22, 81675, München, Germany

    Hans Lauter

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Holland, A.J. (2001). Mental Retardation: A Psychiatric Perspective. In: Henn, F., Sartorius, N., Helmchen, H., Lauter, H. (eds) Contemporary Psychiatry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59519-6_65

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59519-6_65

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64007-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-59519-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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