[Emergency situations in psychiatry]

Abstract

Emergencies in psychiatry depend both on the diagnosis of the pathology (past diagnosis or that revealed by the emergency), and on the situations that caused the crisis, of which their reactional nature demands specific treatment. There is an emergency when this is felt by any of the protagonists: the patient, the doctor or the entourage. The response in the environment can be indifferent, aggravating or pacifying. The behavioural outbursts in the agitated and aggressive situations necessitate a symptomatic treatment of the agitation, investigation of the underlying somatic or psychiatric pathology, and an evaluation of the milleu often at the origin of the aggravation or agitation. New types of emergency psychiatric consultations are currently being observed, underlaid by outbursts of anxieties and anguish, and this occuring across the board. Patients with diverse pathological anxieties arrive in the emergency department with an imperative demand to be relieved. Thus psychiatirc emergency go from behavioural to more intra-psychi situations, and necessitate an evaluation and an immediate response.