Sir, - John Waters (Opinion, August 7th) points out the abuse of psychoanalytic interpretations by people who are not trained properly. His example is a terrible one and shows how easily people within the social professions can be misguided by very superficial approaches to psychoanalysis.
In pointing out the abuse of psychotherapy, however, Mr Waters goes way over the top and becomes abusive himself. It shows that he doesn't know anything about the development of psychoanalysis and dynamic psychotherapy after Freud, a timespan of at least 100 years. I don't want to defend Freud, whose Interpretation of Dreams was published 100 years ago, but the way Mr Waters describes the person who had a major impact on the ways of thinking in the 20th century (not only on medicine and psychotherapy but also on philosophy, literature and literary criticism) reminds me of people who, for instance, talk abusively about the character of James Joyce without any reference to his importance as a writer.
Mr Waters cites Mencken, obviously another one who doesn't know what he is talking about. I do agree that a lot of layman's talk about symbols, especially when they are misused in the detection of sexual abuse, is appalling and can result in horrendous situations such as the one described in his column. Leave Freud where he is, a gifted thinker and writer from the turn of the last century, and take a look at the enormous development of psychoanalytic theory, which has taken place since the second World War.
Mr Waters implies that psychoanalysis is the work of some kind of weird sect indulging in Freudian voodoo. I have to say I am puzzled. As a practising psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, my work is a recognised form of therapy, among others, within the medical profession in Germany. Analytic psychotherapy has been funded by public health insurance since 1967. The training for psychotherapists is professionally organised. The German authorities might well support a bunch of charlatan psychotherapists for a while, but I don't suppose they would do it for long. I expect that the Irish psychoanalytic profession is developing in the same way.
The problem addressed by Mr Waters is a serious one, because he points out the selective misuse of psychoanalytic theory by people who haven't a bull's notion about it. But maybe there's an even greater danger - from columnists who harmfully misinterpret the misinterpretation. I mean, I wouldn't accept medication for any illness from the milkman. Would you? - Yours, etc.,
Albrecht Stadler, Dip. Psych., Director, Alfred Adler Institute, Munich, Germany.