Letter: A few more highways and byways to mental well-being
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.DR PETER Fenwick's article opening your series on mental well- being is characteristically fascinating and Angela Neustatter's overview of therapies available, excellent ("The dynamics of change" and "The mind business", Review, 17 March).
In the "Happiness Directory" and the glossary, however, psychoanalysis is listed at pounds 50 an hour. In fact its range is pounds 10-pounds 40 (or less). The brief note about regulation of the profession takes no heed of the register of the British Confederation of Psychotherapists, a register of all the long-established psychoanalytic organisations responsible for training more then 1,200 psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in the UK.
While the glossary dutifully lists all three components of Freud's structural model of the mind (1923) there is no recognition that these make up such a whole and even the suggestion that the superego, certainly the last aspect to be conceptualised, is a system of personality in itself rather than an aspect of Freud's third model. There is even more reason not to lose sight of the original Freud in remembering that he advocated psychoanalysis not as a panacea for eternal happiness but simply to turn neurosis into ordinary human suffering.
Anne Zachary
British Confederation of Psychotherapists, London NW2
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments