Penn Faculty Author Amy Lutz

Chasing the Intact Mind

Amy Lutz, a historian of medicine and Senior Lecturer in the History and Sociology of Science at The University of Pennsylvania discussing:

Chasing the Intact Mind: How the Severely Autistic and Intellectually Disabled Were Excluded from the Debates That Affect Them Most

In Chasing the Intact Mind, Lutz traces the history of the intact mind concept, explaining how it influences current policy and practice affecting those with autism. Lutz provides a historical analysis of the intact mind narrative and describes how the concept--originally unique to autism--has come to inform current debates at the heart of intellectual and developmental disability practice and policy in the United States, including battles over sheltered workshops, legal guardianship, and facilitated communication. Lutz argues that focusing on the intact mind and marginalizing those with severe disability reproduces historic patterns of discrimination that yoked human worth to intelligence, and that it is only by making space for the impaired mind that we will be able to resolve these ongoing clashes--as well as even larger questions of personhood, dependency, and care.

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