In July 1974, the Mental Health Law Project contacted the APsaA to ask its participation in an Amicus Curiae brief together with the A.P.A. and the American Orthopsychiatric Association in the case of Roe vs. Doe.
In 1973, an injunction was issued, originally by the New York trial court, prohibiting further distribution by Coe Press of a book entitled In Search of a Response, written by one Dr. Roe. (All names are pseudonyms.) At that time 200 copies had been sold. Dr. Roe, not a member of the APsaA, and her husband,
Peter Poe, wrote about the psychiatric treatment for more than six years of Jane Doe, her ex-husband, now deceased, and her son, beginning in 1956. The patient objected to the publication of the details of her treatment on the grounds that she had not consented to its publication and that it violated the doctor-patient relationship.
At the present time, Dr. Roe is seeking a reversal of the injunction and it will shortly be adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court. In participating in the Amicus Curiae brief, the APsaA is defending the right of privacy of the individual, and the strict enforcement of the principal of privileged communication between physician and patient. The new Committee on Confidentiality will be contributing in the action.