[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.