IN most psychiatric residency programs, the resident has some opportunity to admit emotionally disturbed people to a hospital. This experience can be very important in his training. At the same time, he is in the position to affect patients he sees in very major ways since he is often their first contact with a psychiatrist and psychiatric treatment. His attitudes and behavior carry strong messages to the patient, messages which persist long after the usually brief meeting. To this meeting, the young psychiatrist brings his growing knowledge about psychiatric disturbances as well as his preconceptions, misconceptions, and prejudices. His job is to decide whether or not to admit patients. Often, he finds himself in conflict about this. In this article, we summarize and interpret the views about psychiatric hospital admission expressed by a group of residents toward the end of their first year of psychiatric