The Parental Role in the Care and Training of Mental Defectives

neglected factor can be introduced into the training programme. The plan to change the parental attitude does not aim at reducing the amount of work of the hospital staff, but at making the relative's life meaningful and worthwhile and free of guilt and frustration, and so reducing the shadow of the stigma resting on the patient. Parents have usually made considerable emotional investments, before the child was even born, and they naturally tend to look at him as an extension of themselves, so that a mentally defective child is viewed as a reflection of their own inade-