Editing Anne Sexton (section)

==Subsequent controversy==
Following one of many suicide attempts and manic or depressive episodes, Sexton worked with therapist Martin Orne.<ref name="pollitt-nyt" /> He diagnosed her with what is now described as [[bipolar disorder]], but his competence to do so is called into question by his early use of allegedly unsound psychotherapeutic techniques.<ref>Jamison, K.R., [http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ISSUEID_CHAR=850C0446-E166-43CE-B484-54DAB90A59E&ARTICLEID_CHAR=736A3D3A-5223-4B74-8FA9-B1DBF4F6D56 "Manic-depressive illness and creativity"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130915214353/http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ISSUEID_CHAR=850C0446-E166-43CE-B484-54DAB90A59E&ARTICLEID_CHAR=736A3D3A-5223-4B74-8FA9-B1DBF4F6D56 |date=2013-09-15 }}. ''Scientific American'', February 1995, pp. 68–73</ref> During sessions with Sexton, he used [[hypnosis]] and [[sodium thiopental|sodium pentothal]] to recover supposedly [[repressed memory|repressed memories]]. During this process, he allegedly used suggestion to uncover memories of having been abused by her father.<ref Name=Daddy>[https://books.google.com/books?id=SFdbcS_A1XEC&dq=sexton+repressed+memories+orne&pg=PA26 ''Imagining Incest: Sexton, Plath, Rich, and Olds on Life with Daddy''] (2003) Gale Swiontkowski, Susquehanna University Press, p. 26; {{ISBN|9781575910611}}</ref> This abuse was disputed in interviews with her mother and other relatives.<ref>Middlebrook, pp. 56–60.</ref> 

Orne wrote that hypnosis in an adult frequently does not present accurate memories of childhood; instead, "adults under hypnosis are not literally reliving their early childhoods but presenting them through the prisms of adulthood."<ref>{{cite news |title=Martin Orne, 76, Psychiatrist and Expert on Hypnosis, Dies |last=Nagourney |first=Eric |date=2000-02-17 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/17/us/martin-orne-72-psychiatrist-and-expert-on-hypnosis-dies.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=2009-01-06 }}</ref> According to Orne, Sexton was extremely suggestible and would mimic the symptoms of the patients around her in the mental hospitals to which she was committed. Diane Middlebrook's biography states that a separate personality named Elizabeth emerged in Sexton while under hypnosis. Orne did not encourage this development and subsequently this "alternate personality" disappeared. Orne eventually concluded that Anne Sexton was suffering from [[hysteria]].<ref name="Middlebrook" /> 

During the writing of the Middlebrook biography, her daughter, [[Linda Gray Sexton]], stated that she had been sexually assaulted by her mother.<ref Name=Daddy/><ref name="Hausman">{{cite journal |last=Hausman |first=Ken |journal=The Psychiatric News |date=1991-09-06 |title=Psychiatrist Criticized Over Release Of Poet's Psychotherapy Tapes |url=http://www.dianemiddlebrook.com/sexton/tpn9-6.html |access-date=2009-05-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090321225256/http://dianemiddlebrook.com/sexton/tpn9-6.html |archive-date=2009-03-21 }}</ref> In 1994, she published her autobiography ''Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton'', which includes her own accounts of the abuse.<ref>Sexton, Linda Gray (1994) ''Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton''. Little Brown & Co.; {{ISBN|0-316-78207-6}}</ref><ref name="Kakutani"/>

Middlebrook published her controversial biography of Anne Sexton with the approval of daughter Linda, Anne's literary executor.<ref name="Middlebrook" /> For use in the biography, Orne had given Diane Middlebrook most of the tapes recording the therapy sessions between Orne and Anne Sexton. The use of these tapes was met with, as ''The New York Times'' put it, "thunderous condemnation".<ref name="pollitt-nyt" /> Middlebrook received the tapes after she had written a substantial amount of the first draft of Sexton's biography, and decided to start over. Although Linda Gray Sexton collaborated with the Middlebrook biography, other members of the Sexton family were divided over the book, publishing several editorials and op-ed pieces in ''The New York Times'' and ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]''.

Controversy continued with the posthumous public release of the tapes (which had been subject to [[Physician–patient privilege|doctor-patient confidentiality]]). They are said to reveal Sexton's molestation of her daughter Linda,<ref>{{cite news | title=Poet Told All; Therapist Provides the Record | work=The New York Times | date=July 15, 1991 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/15/books/poet-told-all-therapist-provides-the-record.html?sec=health| last1=Stanley | first1=Alessandra }}</ref><ref name="Kakutani">{{cite news |first=Michiko |last=Kakutani |author-link=Michiko Kakutani |date=October 14, 1994 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/14/books/books-of-the-times-a-daughter-revisits-sexton-s-bedlam.html?pagewanted=1&pagewanted=print |title=Books of the Times; A Daughter Revisits Sexton's Bedlam |work=The New York Times}},</ref> her physically violent behavior toward both her daughters, and her physical altercations with her husband.<ref name="Hausman" />

Further controversy surrounds allegations that she had an "affair with" the therapist who replaced Orne in the 1960s.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Morrow |first=Lance |title=Pains of The Poet—And Miracles |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=1991-09-23 |author-link=Lance Morrow |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,973887-1,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111121101931/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,973887-1,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 21, 2011 |access-date=2009-01-18 }}</ref> 

No action was taken to censure or discipline the second therapist. Orne considered the "affair" with the second therapist (given the pseudonym "Ollie Zweizung" by Middlebrook and Linda Sexton) to be the catalyst that eventually resulted in her suicide.<ref name=carroll /> Coverage of the book's release names the second therapist as Dr. Frederick J. Duhl. When questioned, he declined to comment, citing concerns over his medical license.<ref>{{cite news | title=Poet Told All; Therapist Provides the Record | work=The New York Times | date=July 15, 1991 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/15/books/poet-told-all-therapist-provides-the-record.html?sec=health| last1=Stanley | first1=Alessandra }}</ref>