ntellectual disability as a concept within psychology was formed less than 200 years ago. Because this recenttimeline, it is possible to trace the mechanisms that led to the institutionalization of dis/ability and in/capacity in theUnited States

Whiteness is equated with an assump-tion of normalcy and all other socially constructed identities are automatically pathologized. Psychology's entangle-ment with the armed forces makes palpable how intelligence and capacity were racialized in the United States(Black, 2003; Guthrie, 2004; Tucker, 1996).

Instead, Seguin believed children in his schools needed to develop indepen-dence grounded in relationships with other citizens in the community. The only freedom available to humans, hebelieved, was the freedom of association. To reiterate this connection, the children in his schools regularlyfrequented places representing collective belonging, such as churches, museums, and parks.

This history of the category of intellectual disability within North American psychol-ogy has as much to do with class, with race, with gender as with any intellectual capacity. All of these dynamics werepalpable within the courtroom itself

Despite this lack of attention, psychology exerts enormous influ-ence in the lives of those labeled as intellectually disabled, as evidenced by the experts called by the prosecutorin the case this article is centered on, all but one were psychologists Whether it is the justification of dangeroustherapies—such as aversion therapy—or the continued reliance of the standards set by the normal curve to diag-nose and describe ideas of capacity, psychology defines the terms that determine categories and shapetreatment.

That is, people experience emotions not only because of bodily sensations but also because of the way they interpret the external situation. In his later work he developed the idea of emotion further with the idea of religious emotion, by which he meant the experience of spiritu-ality (Carrette, 2008). In his book The Variety of Religious Experience, James provides an interpretation of mental illness in terms of emotional distress that has a religious basis (Pfeifer, 2006).

To James there were no elements, because consciousness was like a stream ( James, 1884). The stream of consciousness flowed on and there was just one experience all mixed in together. The analogy of a stream also captured the fact that a particular experience could never be experienced in exactly the same way as it had been in the past.

. He formed a laboratory in 1896 to study learning in children and developed what were then progressive educational ideas which argued against rote learning (the then common form of education) and instead focused on the student learning by doing, and by the student’s being interested in what was being learned. He believed that the culture in which children were placed played an important role in their development – the child is born into an ‘organised social life’ – and thus provided an early link between developmental and social psychology (Cahan, 1992)

This was not the case in the USA where most people of influence or their parents were self-made. The acceptance of appli-cation was part of the American work ethic – and can be attributed to the Puritanical origins of the USA

Darwin provided a scientific alternative to the creationist view that God created all the animals on earth. The creationist view was inconsistent with increasing accept-ance that science rather than Divine revelation was the route to truth. In addition, the creationist view was inconsistent with the known facts.