Challenges to consensus in preparing the Supplement to the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health

Preparing the Supplement to the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health proved controversial because the assignment, by its nature, challenged several forms of consensus that typically remain unexamined. They included disciplinary assumptions about theory and methods, sociopolitical assumptions about the relevance of history to contemporary circumstances of ethnic minority groups in America, the rigor and usefulness of cultural formulation, and whether the burden of proof rested with those who took for granted that sociocultural differences exist in theories of behavior, or those who took for granted the existence of universals. Preparation of the Supplement illustrates the uncertainty and tension that arise when unexamined boundaries and perspectives lose their capacity to serve as guides to scientific judgment and discourse.