DR RAJ PERSAUD quite rightly brings the attention of your readers to the dangers inherent in the largely unregulated world of therapeutic treatments ("Trust me, I'm a shrink", Real Life, 14 March). However, Dr Persaud seems unaware that the professional training organisations are acutely aware of the need to ensure that their members adhere to the highest ethical standards.

RESEARCHERS HAVE utilised "spies" and spent five years video- taping thousands of consumers to identify for retailers the seven definitive types of British shopper.

MARY EDWARDES made herself the queen scourge of unethical professionals. Whether they were priests, psychotherapists or doctors and whether caught with zips undone or ethics in a twist, Edwardes was remorselessly effective both in supporting their victims and in demanding justice.

IN THE world of psychotherapy and counselling, the word "ethics" is usually used in a very narrow sense to mean, basically, that therapists and counsellors should not take advantage of their patients or clients - be that sexually, emotionally or financially.

A Paris cafe has become a forum for personal problems

Pina Bausch

A good counsellor offers many of the qualities you might look for in a friendship. By Paul Gordon

I WAS in a meadow. It was high summer and the grass was alive with a profusion of wild flowers, whites and yellows, bright purples and pale blues. It was a water-meadow in the upper reaches of one of the Yorkshire Dales where, the thought intruded, the flora had been allowed to regain its ancient glory (thanks to the wonder of the Common Agricultural Policy's set-aside provisions). But I put the notion out of my mind. I was looking for a river.

THREE TRANSSEXUALS won a landmark case at the High Court yesterday, forcing a health authority to pay for their sex change surgery.

It's increasingly easy for gays to be themselves at work, says James Sherwood, but honesty still has its drawbacks

Julie Wheelwright falls under the spell of some mythic femmes fatales

A WEEK last Friday, a book I edited called Cruelty, Violence and Murder: understanding the criminal mind was launched. This is not an advertisement. It is part of the compelling (many would argue overwhelming) body of evidence from psychiatrists and researchers around the world - especially in the USA and Scandinavia - that supports Jayne Zito's call for improved therapeutic engagement with potential killers who are psychopathic or psychotic or both ("The Michael Stones of the future can be treated - but we must start now", 25 October).

A Family Affair; When Virginia discovered that her husband of eight years was having an affair, and a divorce was imminent, the person she turned to was her mother, Jill. Now the two have written a book which they hope will help others in similar straits

MORE THAN 70 people a month are calling a charity with allegations of abuse about therapists, doctors, nurses and counsellors. Tighter regulations are needed urgently to clamp down on those who take advantage of their position to bully and abuse their clients, according to the new Prevention of Professional Abuse Network (Popan).