Like all good neighbours, competing schools of psychiatry claw at each other. Like all good samaritans, some people try to play arbiters and douse the fires. The tradition of fights and retaliation is not new to psy-chiatry, neither is it unique to the branch. Competing schools of thought exist almost everywhere. And it is tempting to say that the more intellec-tually robust a field, the greater the controversies and fights in it.
In fact if intellectuals were to come together and not voice differences, either they are not intellectuals, or they have no opinions. (Or they may be simply scared, or silenced for other reasons.)
Of course we must note that while in other fields of thought there can be controversies, there is one essential difference. They may not be dealing with patients and their lives. And to that the corollary is that psychiatric controversies should not be carried out at the expense of patient welfare.
Having said that, let us also note that when there are fights, arbiters become very active. As do advocates, of one or the other approach.
In this monograph we have tried to act the arbiters. Maybe because it is appropriate. Maybe also because that’s the only thing we can do (and may be do well: atleast that’s what we would love to believe).
Why not advocates ? Well, for one, there are so many already. For another, we run the risk of doing a poor job of it.
Not that we have necessarily done a good job of being arbiters.
Happy 2005.