Anne Sexton's psychiatrist gave about 300 therapy tapes to her biographer after her death, with her daughter's consent as literary executor, and ethicists condemned it

Anne Sexton died by suicide in 1974 at age 45. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Orne, began treating her when she was 28 and started recording their sessions in 1960, having her review them. After Sexton's death he gave the tapes, about 300 in number^†, to Stanford professor Diane Wood Middlebrook. Sexton's daughter and literary executor, Linda Gray Sexton, approved. She said, "My mother had no sense of privacy and I don't see why I should construct one on her behalf"^†. Middlebrook told Newsweek she rewrote most of her book because of the tapes, though she quoted little from them. Orne said he released them "after much soul-searching." The biography, from Houghton Mifflin, appeared in 1991 and sold well. Psychiatrist Kathleen Mogul said, "The daughter may have approved, but that doesn't obligate the psychiatrist to release the material." The American Psychiatric Association's code allows privacy to be waived only by the patient's express wish. Newsweek reported no legal violation alleged against Orne. In 2012 Dawn Skorczewski published a study of the tapes from 1963 and 1964.