RESUMO
The focus of the study was a questionnaire-based overview concerning psychiatric symptoms, self image, control beliefs and some aspects of family relations of severely visually impaired and blind adolescents and young adults. The high incidence of emotional and social problems seemed to be equal to that of a clinical sample, competence and control beliefs differed between impaired und unimpaired adolescents as well as between visually impaired und blind adolescents. Self-perceptions of bonding- vs. detachment behaviour from the viewpoint of the blind adolescents appeared somewhat "surer", nearer to the ratings of the unimpaired peers. The ratings of the visually impaired peers however seem to express more "uncertainties" in both main directions, bonding as well as detachment behaviour. Concerning global self image there seemed to exist no significant difference between our whole sample and unimpaired peers.