Letter: What religion, art and child abuse all have in common...

ARTISTS and child abusers share a talent for deconstructing reality and reconstituting an often beautiful pseudo-reality in its place. Psychologically this allows the individual to move beyond a world that is too mundane or terrifying, in order to creatively control their inner fantasy world. Nietzsche defined art as the spiritualisation of cruelty. The religious urge itself, with its need to transcend the limits of this world, could arguably be said to share a similar psychological dynamic. Clearly some individuals sublimate their primitive feelings, while others tread a less secure line. This is perhaps why in the clinical and survivor literature there is such a constant emphasis on religious abusers within the family, as well as the more publicised abusive priests or cult leaders.

In your article about the paedophile sculptor Eric Gill,"The Anatomy of a Witch-hunt" (Section 2, 19 April), you suggest we are obsessed with sexual abuse. Far from it. We have barely scratched the surface of a problem, the social and medical costs of which are truly staggering.

Well over 50 per cent of psychiatric in-patients suffered sexual abuse in childhood (amongst the highly disturbed this rises to 80 per cent), as did two-thirds of women presently in UK prisons, ditto women with drink/drug addictions, not to mention some eating disorder sufferers, self-harmers, and violent male offenders. If the media took a less simplistic stance it might help us to look for solutions. Marjorie Orr Accuracy About Abuse London NW3

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