Madam, - I was intrigued by the letter from Dr Áine Tubridy (February 16th) which called for more logical approaches to helping people to deal with their life problems.
While I agree with much of what it contained and agree totally with her call, I cannot help but wonder how she might reconcile this position with some of her own writings.
She has written a glowing testimonial on the website of Walter Makichen, who has recently produced a very disturbing book entitled Spirit Babies: How to Communicate with the Child You're Meant to Have, in which he claims that, in conversation with Jesus one day in his apartment, he was told that his role would be to communicate telepathically with the spirits of unborn babies and to guide them in to their prospective parents.
He works with couples who are experiencing significant fertility problems and who are therefore extremely vulnerable. He is described in the publicity for his book as a leading clairvoyant and medium.
Dr Tubridy's assessment of him is indicated in her testimonial: "Walter Makichen is a forerunner in the area of vibrational medicine. Through his unparalleled clairvoyant ability he grounds our spiritual quest in the relationship between our own chakra system and the universal mind".
I have sympathy with the statement in Dr Tubridy's letter that "there is a level of insanity creeping in when problems of living are subtly being medicalised and re-labelled as diseases and disorders". But is it any saner to reinterpret mental illness as being due to imbalances in the chakra system (a non-existent, immeasurable, esoteric energy system), or as a consequence of episodes that occurred in a past life (as posited in a book by Dr Tubridy and Dr Michael Corry)?
Dr Tubridy's arguments for a more logical approach would carry a lot more weight if they were not so thoroughly contradicted in much of her written work.
This seems to me a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black. - Yours, etc,
PAUL O'DONOGHUE, Principal Clinical Psychologist, Highfield Road, Dublin 6.