Dear Editor

I am writing in response to Martin Kemp's courageous and thought-provoking paper ‘Dehumanization, Guilt and Large Group Dynamics’ (BJP 27(4): 383406).

I wonder if I am the only reader to feel embarrassed by the failings of our ‘neutral’ profession, as detailed by Kemp, to offer thoughtful psychoanalytic responses to the rise of fascism, apartheid and the Vietnam war - until such time as the consensus changed to make such comments commonplace. It is easy, after all, to be wise, or brave, after the event. Thinking the unthinkable is indeed a meaningless nostrum unless one is prepared to question received wisdoms and,