Using Staff Consultation to Facilitate the Emotional Development of Adults with Learning Disabilities

The emotional development and emotional difficulties of people with learning disabilities is a much‐neglected area of service provision. Attempts to understand and treat the emotional‐developmental needs and problems of this population are reviewed. Whilst there is some evidence that psychotherapeutic methods have been successfully applied, it is unlikely there will ever be enough psychotherapists to provide adequate individual treatment. This article proposes one response to the problem by demonstrating how the process of consultation can enable care‐staff to develop an understanding response to this area of their clients' lives. A model of consultation (process consultation) that is relevant to the development of care‐staff's therapeutic skills is described.