The Great Freudian Hoax?
SIR,—Mr P. L. Harris writes (Leiters, December 9) . . if Freud has in any way made parents more alive to the extent to which they determine the be- haviour of their children, and has shown that society is partly responsible for the behaviour of the mal- adjusted person and the criminal, such "brainwash- ing" is not altogether undesirable.'
I never feel altogether happy with this parents- and-society thesis. After all, responsibility would be subject to an infinite regression, since our parents also had parents; and so had their parents. More- over, both 'society' and parents are infinitely more permissive today than they were a generation ago, yet maladjustment seems to be on the increase.
Furthermore, in my own experience I have noticed that psychoanalysts are very apt to have 'difficult' and maladjusted children themselves. In fact, among the many with whom I have been acquainted, both in this country and in the United States, I cannot recall a single one whose marriage did not come to grief, or who brought up happy and well-adjusted children. So perhaps it isn't really such a good idea to brainwash common-or-garden parents—if that means teaching them the psychoanalytical approach to family life and parenthood? On the other hand, a serious survey of the marital relations and family life of psychoanalysts would be both useful and en- lightening.
DORIS DAVY
Ridge House, Kingston. Lewes, Sussex
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