—SAYS DR. DOWNEY
By a Staff Reporter
" Whatever be the merits of legitimate psycho-analysis, it has certainly become a weapon of offence in the hands of the carnal
minded," said Archbishop Downey, speaking of the moral dangers arising from the " vulgarisation " and " exploitation " of psychoanalysis.
The Archbishop was addressing a gathering of medical men, under the auspices of the Guild of SS. Luke Cosmas and Damian, at Liverpool, last week.
" Psycho-analysts insist," said Dr. Downey," that during the treatment. in no case is the patient ever to withold from the analyst any thought, however intimate or delicate. Bearing in mind the great part that is assigned to sex impulses by Freud and his school generally, the moral danger of this sort of selfmanifestation, especially when it is made to a person of the opposite sex, is obvious.
" At present any charlatan is free to describe himself as a psychoanalyst, and lead others to physical and moral ruin. so that it is not surprising to find even psycho-analysts declaring that the time has conic when, in the interests of social sanity, the practice of psycho-analysis ought to be regulated by law.
EXPLOITED BY QUACKS
" It has been exploited by quacks, just as hypnosis was when first it came to the knowledge of the general puhlic. It has been written up and written down in the daily Press, and at the present moment it is a tea-table topic. Naturally it has suffered from this vulgarisation."
Dr. Downey suggested that few psycho-analysts would deny that the sex element had been unnecessarily obtruded on the notice of the public. This had given a handle to unscrupulous popularisers who had exploited psycho-analysis for the purpose of achieving big sales among prurient-minded readers.
" In circulation libraries I have seen, both in London and New York. thrown in the way of the ordinary novel-reading public. books which outrage every canon of decency, and which undoubtedly constitute a very real danger to the community," said Dr. Downey.
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