Helping People Who Become Distressed: Attachment and Psychomotor Therapy

This chapter reviews evidence that illuminates a paradox: why do services respond behaviourally to people whose emotions become chaotic? Two emotion-focussed ways to understand and support people with intellectual disabilities are described and examined: one based on attachment theory and another relatively new approach from Europe, psychomotor therapy. Questioning the position taken by behavioural experts and echoed in policies, that any new intervention can and should be incorporated into a positive behavioural support (PBS) ‘framework’, the argument is made that their interiority makes them incompatible with PBS. Rather, each approach should be used to engage with and develop the emotional world of people with intellectual disabilities on its own terms.