I second Barbara Wilson-Clay's excellent synopsis of the importance of rules when we are learning/making our way, etc. In Sociology, those who follow the rules without thinking (they replace use of the rules for the NEED to think independently) are called "ritualists". A classic description of this is offered in a discussion of bureaucracies: what they are and what they can become. Most of us think disparagingly of bureaucracies because of WHAT THEY HAVE BECOME. When first developed, they were designed to ASSIST people, believe it or not! The problem arises when the rules designed to assist people become so important in themselves that those who apply them need not think about what they are doing. Consider any branch of the federal government with which you are most familiar and you will likely be able to identify someone who applies the rules to assist and another person (or more!) who is so rule-bound that they can not seem to think beyond the ruler they use to follow the rule they are reading!!! I am not suggesting that novices in a profession are ritualists. Rather, it is persons beyond the novice stage who persist in applying the rules willy-nilly who are ritualists. These also are the persons whose reading has probably stopped with acquisition of their terminal degree and whose rules they are still following have long since been consigned to the (clinical/theoratical/professional--your choice) dustbin by those who have remained current. Let's hear it for staying current, learning from one another, contributing to the collective knowledge base, and for knowing when and when *not* to apply those rules.... mailto:[log in to unmask] "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations." Kathleen G. Auerbach,PhD, IBCLC (Ferndale, WA USA) [log in to unmask] WEB PAGE: http://www.telcomplus.net/kga/lactation.htm LACTNET archives http://library.ummed.edu/lsv/archives/lactnet.html