On the Couch
To the Editors:
You made a wrong diagnosis in "Psychiatry's Depression" [April 2]. After a prolonged high, or hypomania, psychiatry's descent to a healthy normal only seems like a depression. Most of us who practice this medical specialty are pleased with its present position.
Raymond B. ReinhartJr., M.D. New Hope, Pa.
Psychiatry is not in a "depression,' as you so charitably put it. Psychiatry, like the behavioral sciences it spawned, is bankrupt and should be put to rest. The theories of Freud and his disciples have produced illiterates in our schools, turned prisons into training grounds for criminals, perverted our judicial system, created the Me-First society and expounded economic policies that have virtually ruined us financially.
Alfred Humbert Jr. Chicago
It comes as no surprise that the Me generation is committing psychoanalysis to the grave. Would Narcissus have liked an analyst who threw stones in his pool?
Jeb Burrows Cliffside Park, N.J.
Most people do not have psychological problems; they have spiritual problems. Psychiatry seems to run in horror from this essential dimension of the human being.
Joan Williams Ward Philadelphia
The quote attributed to me, "A Cadillac may be a very fine car to drive, but it would be uneconomical to say we're dedicated to buying Cadillacs for every person in our society," lends itself to the cynical misinterpretation that good psychotherapy is too expensive for the average person. On the contrary, it is too expensive for society not to provide good psychiatric care for all who need it. Failure to do so results in far greater indirect costs to society in terms of increased medical expenses, absenteeism, child abuse, delinquency, crime and alcoholism, among other problems. The shorter-term treatments that I and others have been advocating for some (not all) conditions are not inferior substitutes, but actually more effective ways of achieving desired therapeutic objectives.
Judd Marmor, M.D. Los Angeles
Anyone going to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
Albert J. Silverstein New Rochelle, N. Y.
I can testify, from personal experience, that psychotherapy can be an extremely successful form of treatment for personality disorders. It has enriched my life immensely.
(Mrs.) Thelma E. Bradt Fairfax, Va.
Not only medical degrees are "hare won." A Ph.D. in clinical psychology requires four years of graduate training and a year of internship. I doubt that many of us clinical psychologists simply "chat sympathetically and tell a patient 'You're much too hard on yourself.' "
Richard Spring Paris, Tenn.
Debate on the Draft
Re "Uncle Sam Wants Who?" [April 2]: the Declaration of Independence states that an inalienable right is that of the "pursuit of happiness." There are many of us who do not consider being forced to kill others pursuing happiness. The draft is inherently immoral, and any attempts to reinstate it should be resisted.
Kathleen Scott West Chester, Pa.