Sir, - I rarely argue with an opinion expressed in a newspaper - people have the right to be wrong - but I will reply to John Waters's column of August 28th. I don't want to argue about psychoanalysis (there is none deafer than someone who doesn't want to listen); I just want to note that John Waters confuses psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. They don't do the same job and they don't have the same aim.
When he writes that Freudian ideologies lead to the destruction of lives and families, I think he makes a confusion between life and taboo, and also between families and hypocrisies. (How often have I heard the words, "Say nothing"? Thank God and thanks to Freud, now they talk.)
The answer to the last sentence of Mr Waters's article is in The Irish Times nearly every day - stories of fathers, uncles, neighbours, priests who have been put in jail for sex abuse because the victims have spoken (even 30 years after); and that is thanks to "Freud's crazy ideas". - Yours, etc.,
Paul Chatenoud, Ardvally, Ardara, Co Donegal.