To the Editor:

During the meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in December 1979, there occurred at least one instance when a session of the Association was tape-recorded by an unauthorized person who had no permission to participate in the session but was a professional recorder.

Sessions in their entirety or in part are often taped for educational purposes. In this instance, however, neither the identity of the person in question, nor his reasons for recording the session are known. It cannot be excluded that the meetings of the Association are under surveillance or are taped for another equally distasteful reason.

It would be advisable that members who know anything about this matter or who have observed tape-recording of meetings in other instances inform the Central Office of the Association. So long as this point has not been clarified, the freedom of discussion and the uninhibited expression of opinions by the participants at future meetings will be of necessity severely curtailed.

K. R. Eissler, M.D.

New York