Issues in the treatment of mentally retarded patients in the community mental health system.

Developmental disability, particularly mental retardation, both affects a person's cognitive functioning and places that person on an alternative track of development which, when combined with social, political and economic pressures, places the developmentally disabled person at increased risk for mental illness. The presenting symptoms of mental illness will be modified by the mentally retarded person's cognitive impairment, personality development, and massively different life experience, as will the nature of his interactions with helping agencies. Evaluation, diagnosis and treatment must evolve from an alliance with the mentally retarded persons, not with caretaking agencies, and must be modified to take into account the retarded person's powerlessness. The therapist must be prepared to act as both advocate and bridge-builder for the patient, with the patient's increasing participation. The therapist must be prepared to steer between the Scylla of ignorance about the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in the mentally retarded and the Charybdis of financial disincentives for human service agencies to collaborate in their care. The advantages of inter-agency cooperation in the treatment of dually-diagnosed individuals is described and illustrated.