In their paper ‘To resist is to exist’ (Therapy Today, March 2009), Kemp and Pinto cite a case of a child becoming blind due to the psychological trauma attributed to reported demolition of her house. I note that her mother reportedly became ‘mute’. As an optometrist I am not in a position to comment on the psychoanalytical diagnoses regarding causes but I would ask that I be allowed to make some observations.