Letters

Regarding your interview with Iain Ferguson on Marxism and mental health (November SR) I was surprised that there was no mention of Peter Sedgwick, a leading member of the International Socialists (forerunner of the SWP) who published in 1982 Psycho Politics (Pluto Press). This dealt with anti-psychiatry including Goffman, Laing and Foucault.

Peter’s conclusion was that the mental health movements overemphasise civil liberties and individualistic solutions — at the expense of developing collective responsibility for the care of those experiencing mental health problems.

Iain Ferguson quite correctly emphasises in his interview (November SR) that the roots of mental illness lie in capitalist society but that there is a Marxist psychoanalytical tradition that rejected Freud’s individualism.

John Parrington (Letters, SR October) argues that a greater emphasis should be placed on the role of biology in order to understand why some individuals develop schizophrenia. John criticises Oliver James’s book for “blaming the parents”.

The survival of many of our hospital services in South West London is at a critical stage, and the government (with complicity from local management and Clinical Commissioning Groups) is taking them from us.

We’ve five main hospitals left (in our so-called South West London “footprint”), and they are St George’s (Tooting), Croydon, St Helier (Carshalton), Epsom and Kingston. We’ve been told that they can’t sustain (a current buzzword) all five, and that it’ll be reduced to four, or even three. This where Mr Elkeles comes in.

The SWP is quite right to support the right of the people of Catalonia to determine their own future. Most of the mainstream media frames the question as “Should Catalonia break away from Spain?” In fact the real question is, “Should the people of Catalonia have the right to separate from Spain if they want to?”

The “illegal” referendum was organised because the Spanish Constitution makes it virtually impossible to hold one “legally”. And the brutal repression we have witnessed has probably created a majority in Catalonia for independence even if one did not exist before.

Even the UK’s most stolid institutions are waking up to the fact that, post-Grenfell, things are changing. Rather than award its annual top gong to someone responsible for designing a posh museum, sports stadium or residential block for wealthy people, the architects’ association RIBA has this year chosen Neave Brown as the recipient of its Gold Medal.

I agree completely with Sally Campbell’s argument with regard to transgender rights (September SR). However, the article needed a stronger last sentence.

In response to Sally Campbell’s article on the Gender Recognition Act Kristina Harrison makes some interesting points (Feedback, October SR) but I think some of her arguments are flawed.

Having read Camilla Royle’s interview with Joseph Choonara in last month’s Socialist Review, I looked forward to reading his new Reader’s Guide to Marx’s Capital. I was not disappointed when I did and only wish it had been available when I tackled volume one of Marx’s world-changing work — on which Joseph’s guide focuses — some time ago.

My vested interest is obvious but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed by the review of my Lenin for Today book by Tomás Tengely Evans in the last Socialist Review.