Treatment of acute crisis in child and adolescent psychiatry

Crises from the child and adolescent psychiatric point of view must be considered as unique or repeated moments of basic questioning of self-focused and relational perception. Hospitalisation if necessary depends on a well prepared social, legal, physical and cooperative framework. Patients, their family or social environment are in need of clarity, structure, and a professional counterpart willing to engage responsibly within an inpatient or--mostly--outpatient framework. He must adapt his diagnostic or therapeutic action to the patient's experience of fear, loss of orientation and insecurity. Then a crisis may be experienced like a bonding experience. Concerning the capacity of action confronted to psychiatric crisis the authors stress the importance of the scenic understanding, expressed symptoms and the acted-out crisis dynamics more than diagnostic classification. The diagnostic and decisive process of atunement to the patient in crisis is being described. A model for psychodynamic understanding of perception of and action towards crisis is proposed, which allows describing the interference between relational dynamics and intra-psychic conflicts leading to crisis. This can then be used as therapeutical focus for the crisis intervention or a consecutive psychotherapeutic treatment.