Considerations in the treatment of the adult blind patient

This paper contends that blindness is not a single clinical determinant, but, rather, that there are two groups of blind people for whom the treatment considerations are quite different. For those congenitally blind, lack of vision can cause developmental difficulties, e.g., impairments in human attachment, object permanence, and self-representation. For those who later acquire blindness, the premorbid psychodynamics and object relationships are most important in understanding the person's reactions to his/her disability. Two adult cases are presented to illustrate these phenomena in the context of psychotherapy.