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Christmas In Purgatory: A Photographic Essay On Mental Retardation

Creator:		Burton Blatt and Fred Kaplan (authors)
Date:		1974
Source:		Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact:		Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 Figure 18 Figure 19 Figure 20 Figure 21 Figure 22 Figure 23 Figure 24 Figure 25 Figure 26 Figure 27 Figure 28 Figure 29 Figure 30 Figure 31 Figure 32 Figure 33 Figure 34 Figure 35 Figure 36 Figure 37 Figure 38 Figure 39 Figure 40 Figure 41 Figure 42 Figure 43 Figure 44 Figure 45 Figure 46 Figure 47 Figure 48 Figure 49 Figure 50 Figure 51 Figure 52 Figure 53 Figure 54 Figure 55 Figure 56 Figure 57 Figure 58 Figure 59 Figure 60 Figure 61 Figure 62 Figure 63 Figure 64 Figure 65 Figure 66 Figure 67 Figure 68 Figure 69 Figure 70 Figure 71 Figure 72 Figure 73 Figure 74 Figure 75 Figure 76 Figure 77 Figure 78 Figure 79 Figure 80 Figure 81 Figure 82 Figure 83 Figure 84 Figure 85 Figure 86 Figure 87 Figure 88 Figure 89 Figure 90 Figure 91 Figure 92 Figure 93 Figure 94 Figure 95 Figure 96 Figure 97 Figure 98 Figure 99 Figure 100 Figure 101 Figure 102 Figure 103 Figure 104 Figure 105 Figure 106 Figure 107 Figure 108 Figure 109 Figure 110 Figure 111 Figure 112 Figure 113 Figure 114 Figure 115 Figure 116 Figure 117 Figure 118 Figure 119 Figure 120 Figure 121

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47		We observed adult residents during recreation, playing "ring-around the-rosy." Others, in the vocational training center, were playing "jacks." These were not always severely retarded patients. However, we got the feeling very quickly that this is the way they were being forced to behave.

48		PURGATORY I "In bed we laugh..."

49		"In bed we laugh, in bed we cry; And, born in bed, in bed we die. The near approach a bed may show Of human bliss to human woe." Isaac de Benserade

50		Among the things we will remember are the beds and the benches. Early in the evening, sometimes as early as 5 P.M., patients are put to bed. This is to equalize the work load among the different attendant shifts. During the day, we saw many patients lying on their beds, apparently for long periods of time. This was their activity.

51		During these observations, we thought a great deal about the perennial cry for attendants and volunteer workers who are more sympathetic and understanding of institutionalized retarded residents. One of the things we realized was that attendants might be sympathetic, might interact more with patients, if institutional administrators made deliberate attempts to make patients cosmetically more appealing. For example, adult male residents should shave -- or be shaven -- more than once or twice a week. Dentures should be provided for any patient who needs them. It seems plausible to believe that it is much more possible to make residents more attractive and, therefore, more interesting to attendants than it is to attempt to convince attendants that they should enjoy the spectacle of unwashed, unkempt, odoriferous, toothless old men and women.

52		Lastly, we viewed old women and very young girls in the same dormitories and old men and young boys as comrades in the day room. In the "normal" world, there is something appealing -- even touching -- about such friendships. In an institution residents would benefit by companionship from patients their own age.

53		PURGATORY II "The Promised Land..."

54		"The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness." Havelock Ellis

55		About ten years ago, I made several trips to a large state institution for the mentally retarded, one not visited during the current study. I became interested in and, for several days, visited a dormitory housing severely retarded ambulatory adults -- one that was very similar in population to those living quarters discussed in Part I. However, this dormitory was different in a very important way. What made this dormitory different can best be illustrated with the following story.

56		On the occasion of one such visit, I was hailed by one of the attendants and asked to come into the day room. The attendant called over a 35 or 40 year old, partly nude male and said, "Dr. Blatt, you remember Charlie. Charlie has learned how to say hello since your last visit. Charlie, say hello to Dr. Blatt." Charlie grunted and the attendant went into a kind of ecstasy that is rarely shown by adults and, when it is, radiates warmth for everyone lucky enough to be touched by it. It should not be misunderstood that Charlie's grunt resembled anything like a hello, or any other human utterance. In a way, this attendant's reaction to Charlie might have been considered as a kind of psycho-pathology of its own. However, we have a different understanding of it.

57		What kind of man was this attendant? In 1938 he walked, literally off the streets, into that institution -- an alcoholic, without a home of his own, purposeless and without a future -- and asked for a job. For twenty-eight years he has served as an attendant in a dormitory for severely retarded patients at this institution. He knows every "boy" there and actually thinks of them as his children and they of him as their father.

58		Sometimes, in despair and helplessness, we ask ourselves why were these severely retarded human beings born. When one observes an attendant of the kind we have just described, it is possible to find an answer. If not for the mentally retarded this attendant might have been a drifter, an alcoholic, much less of a person than he actually is. Would it be unfair to say that this attendant needed mental retardation in order to fulfill his own destiny and obtain the greatest good he could render to society?

59		Mental reardation -sic- can bring out the best in some people -- as well as the worst. At The Seaside, it brings out the best in a lot of different adults who are involved professionally, inter-personally, and tangentially, with the residents. The Seaside has more of the people of the kind we have just discussed, than do other places for the mentally retarded -- notwithstanding the fact that every institution, large as well as small and those discussed in Part I as well as The Seaside, has superb and dedicated attendants and professional staff as well as its quota of mediocre and poor staff. In our opinion, The Seaside has more superior personnel and fewer of the inefficient and disinterested. We believe this is a major difference between The Seaside and other institutions for the mentally retarded.