LETTER : False memory claims: a dangerous diversion

From Mrs Sheila Spensley Sir: Your leading article "Shrinking from the truth" (13 January) is right to draw attention to the absence of discrimination in the thinking of many so-called psychotherapists, but it falls into the same trap when it, too, failsto differentiate between psychotherapy trainings. There are psychotherapists and "psychotherapists", and the public urgently requires to know more about the standards of selection and training involved in the proliferating number of trainings in psychotherapy now being set up.

You are over impressed by the pronouncements of the British Psychological Society because, like most critics of psychoanalysis, you are oblivious of developments in psychoanalytic thinking post Freud. Psychoanalytic psychotherapists have long been aware of the tricks of the mind and concern themselves with mental states, not the events that may or may not have precipitated the states of mind.

Had you consulted the Register of The British Confederation of Psychotherapists, which includes only those psychotherapists who meet high standards of professional experience, training and expertise, you might be less pessimistic about the future of psychotherapy.

Yours faithfully, SHEILA SPENSLEY Consultant Clinical Psychologist Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist Willesden Centre for Psychological Treatment Willesden Community Hospital London, NW10

14 January