A community group in the State Hospital

conscious and consciousness, when it became apparent that his patients had rarely suffered the actual trauma (initially thought to be incest). Later he developed the theory of ego, superego and id, thus elaborating the 'topographical phase'. Turning to Anderson's concern that psychoanalysis explains 'whatever happens'; all disciplines attempt to explain 'whatever happens' within their frame of reference.

and conjectured that they were the result of affect being repressed due to a major trauma, to the 'topographical phase', in which he evolved the theory of unconscious, preconscious and consciousness, when it became apparent that his patients had rarely suffered the actual trauma (initially thought to be incest). Later he developed the theory of ego, superego and id, thus elaborating the 'topographical phase'.
Turning to Anderson's concern that psychoanalysis explains 'whatever happens'; all disciplines attempt to explain 'whatever happens' within their frame of reference.
As the physical sciences attempt to explain the physical world, so psychoanalysis attempts to explain the intrapsychic world. Both have levelsof explanation which can be likened to Bhaskar's 'generative mechanisms'. (This discussion is now closed. Eds.)

DEARSIRS
Dr Cantor, in his comment on Dr Novosel's paper on a Community Group in the State Hospital (Bulletin, December 1986,10, 360) rightly stresses the importance of being critical of "any treatment modality that is expensive in terms of staff resources". I would go further than this and stress the importance of being critical of any treatment modality, irrespective of cost. Dr Cantor goes on to criticise Dr Novosel's group, and says that he could find no evidence in the paper to support Dr Novosel's claim for the group's success. I continue to agree with Dr Cantor that it is important to determine by what criteria successcan bejudged. This is the difficult part.
Unfortunately, Dr Cantor illustrates his plea for an empirical approach to assessing such groups, by giving the sort of caricature of a scientificattitude that gives statistical research a bad name. He writes that the group, if tested by a depression rating scale, would be likely to have registered "a profound increase in depressive symptoms", as if this shows the group was not successful. It seems to me that if a group of people, "the majority having a diagnosis of schizo phrenia", most of whom have committed crimes, are to become depressed, this might be seen as a sign of progress and maturation. I would call this "success".

DEAR SIRS
Ian Deary's support for the 'Wisdom of Deterrenceâ€"a reply to Jim Dyer' ' -2combines a little psychology and a lot of political opinion on defence policy. Albert Einstein dis played greater psychological wisdom when he notedâ€""The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our way of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive".3 Deterrence is a prenuclear concept mistakenly applied to nuclear weaponry. It assumes that the threat of massive destruction will restrain the 'enemy'. If deterrence is military policy, what is the justification for the accumulation of 50,000 nuclear weapons, the equivalent of 4 tonnes of TNT for every man, woman and child on earth?
A further illusion of Dr Deary is that nuclear weapons have kept the peace between the US and USSR in the past 40 years. This is a very blinkered view of history. These two nations were allies in World War 2 and were not adversaries before the nuclear age. Dr Deary's apparent conclusion that nuclear weapons have conventional political uses is based on the premise of a limited nuclear war and not deterrence.
The World Health Organization has identified nuclear war as the greatest threat to the health and welfare of man kind, it is not just Dr Dyer's view. Palaentologists remind us that of all the species that have existed on this planet, 99% are now extinct. The nuclear syndrome may well be our Achilles heel. Nuclear war carries the threat of omnicideâ€"extinctionof the species homo sapiens, as a real possibility.
In psychological terms, nuclear weapons are the symbol of power. Britain, having lost its empire, spends enormous sums to preserve the symbol, while its National Health Service and educational system crumble and unemploy ment soars. To suggest that nuclear weaponry is not expensive is a fallacy. The British Trident submarine programme is costing Â£10 billion. One trillion dollars is the price tag of SDÃOE (Star Wars).