We, the editors of this book, both have a long association with Dorothea Orem—Susan Taylor since 1976 and Kathie Renpenning since 1983. Collaboration between the two of us began in 1983 at the instigation of Orem and continues to this day through theory development activities, writing and publishing, and giving presentations in North America, South America, Asia, and Europe. As we have worked with Orem and learned of her theoretical and conceptual work, we also got to know her personally and were privileged to have access to her working papers and presentations. There is great value in these materials and we wanted to share them with the nursing community
