title: [The concept of mental deficiency. Evolution of theories, attitudes and practices].
abstract: In the last twenty years a deep renewal of the conceptions about and the treatments of the mentally deficients has taken place. In an attempt to clarify somehow the confusion in the communication between specialists, the author reminds the classical position on this subject, which relies upon the definition of the idiocy: a state of a severe mental defect, set up early in life, with an organic cause and being incurable for this reason. In spite of the later considerable differenciation at different levels and types, the classical position maintains this definition as the ground of the nosographic class of the mental retardations (debility is considered then as a light idiocy), divided in two sub-classes of either "polygenic heredity" or accidents causing early brain damages. From a clinical point of view, such a theoretical position is difficult to apply, especially in cases of middle and light mental defects. From a theoretical point of view, this classical position has been often attacked: by the evidence of the socio-cultural factors of the intellectual development, by the analysis of the so-called instrumental troubles, by the studies about the early lack of mother-care and the child-psychoses with a defect, by the more recent works on dysharmonic evolvements, etc. All this has lead to major theoretical changes which force to give up the illusion of a "single class" of mental retardations and study therefore each case in the trajectory of its development, not only of the cognitive patterns but also of the whole personality structure. This clinical approach forces to admit organic, environmental (sociological and psycho-sociological) and relational, dynamic factors as well; and, to accept that their combination, replaced in a genetic context of the functioning patterns, establishes a new, properly psychological level of causality. So, even the idea of a "defectology" is non-sense; the factors and the problems in question are the same as in any other psychogenesis. Nevertheless, the study of cases, in which this psychogenesis is caracterized by a mental deficit, is very important.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007207:Individuation; D007223:Infant; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D007360:Intelligence; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011582:Psychological Theory
vernacular_title: Le concept de déficience mentale. Evolution des théories, des attitudes et des pratiques.