Correspondence

Sir,

In the early twelfth century, a group of theologians gave birth to the University of Oxford. The University motto, Dominus, iltuminatio meo', still in use today, serve, as a reminder of its religious infancy. During adolescence, the University offered instruction in such topics as sin, heresy and eternal damnation; most of the dons were cleric. Such a catholic upbringing, brimming with spiritual indoctrination, will inevitably produce an obsessional personality unable to tolerate doubt or creative imagination. And as the University never received any psychotherapy during its life-cycle, the neurotic character structure became more heavily reinforced and defended. When psycho-analysis, that distinctly Jewish profession, first appeared in England, the University became highly suspicious and immediately protected itself by establishing an institute of psychology where ‘scientists’ could study the behaviour of rats. And when David Astor offered a substantial sum of money to the University to establish a Professorship of Freudian Psychology, the University officials scoffed, and proceeded to develop a department of psychiatry dedicated to the administration of drugs and electroconvulsive shock treatment, and a department of clinical psychology skilled in the fine points of systematic desensitisation.

In 1982, I felt starved; my alma mater did not nurture me, and I found myself commuting to London several times a week just to hear psycho-analytical lectures. In 1983, 1 rebelled, and with the aid of a group of psycho-analytical enthusiasts, we formed the Oxford Psycho-Analytical Forum. Dr. Muriel Gardiner generously accepted our offer to serve as the Inaugural Lecturer, and with over one hundred people in attendance, we began in earnest to provide for the needs of our abandoned siblings. (Dr. Gardiner spoke on some of the technical differences between Viennese psycho-analysis of the 1920, and contemporary psycho-analysis. To