Madam, - It is not the case that Freud was "reticent" about publishing his child sex abuse theory (Letter, May 29th). Within a mere four months of alighting on the theory he completed two papers in which he claimed to have analytically "traced back" to unconscious memories of sexual abuse in infancy for every one of some 16 patients, although he had not reported a single such case prior to that time. Little wonder that his colleagues were sceptical about his clinical contentions (though it is a myth that they were outraged by his claims, and that he abandoned the theory for that reason.)
Father Jim Cogley (May 26th), understandably, is unaware of the scholarship that has demonstrated a number of historical errors in his article. Freud was not the first to recognise the occurrence of child sexual abuse. He did not uncover "an enormous body of evidence" for his clinical claims in 1896 - the contemporary documents show that the symbolic interpretation of symptons was at the heart of his clinical methodology. And there is no evidence that "many of his closest friends and contemporaries" were guilty of sexually abusing their children. - Yours, etc.,
ALLEN ESTERSON, Cromwell Grove, London, W6 7RQ.