The bulk of this series has focused on Anne Sexton, her mental illness, her work, her success as a poet, her inability to get along with family, and so on.  What drew me to this subject, however, was not Sexton herself, but rather her therapist, Dr. Martin Orne. As I commented to our friend Susan earlier in this series, this is a conspiracy blog, not a literary one.  And Orne was a key player in MK-ULTRA mind-control experimentation, and a pivotal figure in the history of hypnosis.  

Although I have thoroughly enjoyed Sexton’s work over the course of the summer, this series offered an opportunity to explore the mind and methodology of Dr. Orne.  As a psychiatrist, he obviously saw patients.  But he spent the bulk of his professional time teaching at such Ivy League Institutions as Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, and doing research for the US military and intelligence interests.  So any information that indicates how he actually handled patients becomes rather important.

I read Dr. Diane Middlebrook’s biography because I knew of Dr. Orne’s direct involvement with it.  Not only did he supply the tapes, but he gave extensive information to Middlebrook in interviews, and even wrote the book’s foreword.  So I reckoned that by reading it, I could gain some insight as to how he approached patients, their treatment, and ultimately their healing.  It thus surprised me how often MK-ULTRA themes emerged in during his psychoanalysis of Sexton.  In other words, subjects of interest to the CIA at that time--especially those pertaining to Dr. Orne’s expertise--seem to crop up over and over during Anne's taped sessions, and in other aspects of her care described by Orne to Middlebrook.

I’m not suggesting that Dr. Orne used Sexton as an MK-ULTRA guinea pig;  although I cannot rule out the possibility, I highly doubt it.  Likewise, I wouldn’t suggest that Orne attempted to create a Manchurian Poet out of Sexton, or anything like that.  In fact, my first guess is that, in general, Orne accurately depicted the relationship as that between dedicated doctor and a genuinely troubled patient.

At the same time, I believe there was more to that relationship, given the content of what they discussed.  You see, Orne always spoke of Sexton as a “difficult” patient.  But just as often he stressed that she was generous, and had  a strong (one could say neurotic) need to be helpful.  And we have good reason to believe that she helped him quite a bit. 

Because MK-ULTRA themes came up so often in the course of psychoanalysis, we can  prove at least one instance (and possibly others) where Orne’s association with Sexton informed his research.  In other words, while Orne, Middlebrook, Maxine Kumin and others (rightly) saw the psychiatrist as a guiding figure in Sexton’s life and work, Anne, perhaps unwittingly, might have been just as much a guiding figure in his life and work.