THIS CONFERENCE IS in the tradition of an institution (Massachusetts Mental Health Center) which has always welcomed serious professional controversy about important matters.

Agreement at any cost spells the death of any scientific field. True vitality grows out of battle, heresy, and challenges to orthodoxy. This meeting is a example of different points of view challenging one another while approaching the same material. It's an opportunity to welcome controversy, and by virtue of the expand our understanding of the range of meanings which is open to us as we work with patients.