ABSTRACT
Robert Pyles's chapter summarizes the legal and philosophical basis for the extraordinarily effective American Psychoanalytic Association intervention on the question of patients' privacy and psychoanalytic confidentiality. Although Pyles emphasizes the importance of privacy rights, his discussion of Jaffee v. Redmond and the Bierenbaum and Hayes cases makes it quite clear that success in the courts has been based on the pragmatic or utilitarian argument for a special psychotherapy privilege. The argument is grounded less on the right of privacy than on society's overriding interest in preserving the benefit of psychotherapy for its individual citizens. According to the argument in Jaffee vs. Redmond, this benefit depends on the professional promise of confidentiality.
