03-18-2011, 12:10 PM
In 1991 psychiatrist Dr. Martin Orne, who'd treated the poet Anne Sexton on and off before her suicide in 1974, courted extreme controversy after he released the recordings he'd made of his sessions with her to biographer Diane Middlebrook.
Many in the psychiatric profession still consider this an enormous betrayal of trust. His reasoning was that her poetry was so open about her mental illness, and she strongly believed in her lifetime that such honesty could assist fellow sufferers, that it was what she would have wanted.
What are your opinions on this? Should a medical professional ever be allowed under any circumstances to publicly reveal what a patient told them, even if the patient is dead?
Many in the psychiatric profession still consider this an enormous betrayal of trust. His reasoning was that her poetry was so open about her mental illness, and she strongly believed in her lifetime that such honesty could assist fellow sufferers, that it was what she would have wanted.
What are your opinions on this? Should a medical professional ever be allowed under any circumstances to publicly reveal what a patient told them, even if the patient is dead?
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe