Sophie Sheinwald (Letters, August 1) may be misleading with regard to the psychiatric profession.

Serial killer Dr Harold Shipman used his medical knowledge to murder people using diamorphine but doing so should not bring all general practitioners into disrepute.

A psychiatrist has trained as a medical doctor and then specialised in mental illness, whereas a psychologist studies the mind but cannot dispense medication.

Was Ms Sheinwald referring to class-A, mind-altering psychiatric drugs or psychotropic medication prescribed by psychiatrists for people with psychotic illnesses?

Amphetamines were once prescribed for obesity but there is a possibility of hallucinations from ingesting a large enough quantity.

The television series about the Hitler Youth, Hitler's Children, is an example of mass brainwashing without the use of mind-altering drugs. Similarly, the cult members who committed suicide in Waco, Texas, killed themselves because they had apprently been brainwashed.

We are all capable of the greatest good and the greatest evil. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, called it "the shadow" which we all inherit. The monotheistic religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - know this as "The Fall", described in Genesis, in the Bible.

For Ms Sheinwald to state that psychiatrists are key players in the upsurge of terrorism, without supplying much evidence for her argument, is a dangerous statement.

Psychiatrists and psychologists endeavour to help patients with either psychotropic medication or through "talking" therapies.

If Ms Sheinwald's allegations about al-Qaeda's psychiatrists are true, then they have used their skills for evil and to brainwash gullible, young men.

-Carole Irvin, Saltdean