DOCTORS’ ‘HERESY HUNT'

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 781, 30 September 1929, Page 11

DOCTORS’ ‘HERESY HUNT'

B.M.A. DISCUSSES PSYCHOANALYSIS “'GRAVE MORAL DANGER” Many attacks on psyclio-analysis were made at a meeting- of the British Medical Association at Manchester recently. The association met to consider a report by Dr. R. Langdon-Down of the work of a special committee set up two and a-half years ago. The report set forth criticisms of the theory and method of psycho-analysis and answers of the British Analytical Society. An amendment was moved by Dr. L. A. Parry, Isle of Wight, regretting that more emphasis had not been laid on “the very real and serious dangers, especially to children and adolescents, of any system of mental therapy which postulates the sexual basis as the sole. or preponderating’ cause of neuroses and pathological mental conditions.” Dr. C. E. Douglas, St. Andrews, Fife, said that psycho-analysis was “an old story.” The gravamen of the charge against psycho-analysis was that it was a bad thing morally to dii’ect patients’ thoughts to sexual matters. Could they in their general practice as doctors take the responsibility of trusting their patients to such a revolting method of treatment?

-Dr. C. M. Stevenson, of Cambridge, opposed the amendment as part of a “heresy hunt.” He said that heresy hunts had done harm to the people who conducted them. “We are out.to protect certain members of the public, our patients—those patients who are treated by untrained psycho-analyists,” said Dr. J. T. D’Ewart, of Manchester.

“We cannot go contrary to the pub: lie interest,” he added. “If there are any of our patients whose moral life is being impaired by T hose individuals, call them what you will, there is a public danger.” “All that Dr. Parry’s motion asks is that we should warn the public that in this type of work carried out a.s at present, there is a grave moral danger,” he added. Dr. F. H. Bodman, of Bristol, said that that was not a court of morals or manners, but a scientific court. He thought there was a body of scientific evidence to support both the principles and the application of psychoanalytical technique and he had not come across a juster or more lucid explanation of the question than the report presented. The amendment was rejected by a big majority and the report of thfe committee accepted.