[What is a psychiatric emergency? Elements of a catamnestic and comprehensive approach].

The authors introduce in this paper the first results of a catamnestic research performed in 1980 through interviews on 759 psychiatric emergencies in 1978 at the Saint-Luc clinics (Woluwe). A detailed analysis of psychiatric emergencies confronts the researcher to various problems (how and why is the psychiatrist called?) and more philosophically about mental health, therapeutic efficacy or the objectivity of the analysis. The authors also emphasize deontological problems in this type of research and the image of psychiatry and psychic disarray in the practice of emergency. Furthermore, this research brings up various working accommodations. Finally, the authors indicate some future areas of action, in the specific frame of the studied clinic, in order to ameliorate alternatives to hospitalisation in face of a psychiatric emergency.