History of the general hospital psychiatric inpatient unit. 1947 to 1986.

Thirty-five years ago, the Mount Sinai unit was considered the state of the art for inpatient psychiatry. Now, short-term hospitalization, active management techniques, and quick dispositions are the practice. At the rate at which neurophysiology and psychiatry are expanding, I have to anticipate that inpatient psychiatric care will again change radically, and long before another 35 years. I doubt that the psychiatric unit of today that I have described will still be recognizable in 10 years.