[From war psychiatry to disaster and crisis psychiatry]

Psychiatry has derived much benefit from the combat experience of military medicine. The Allies' military psychiatry during the Second World War established cardinal modes of treatment, such as group therapy, the therapeutic community, and crisis intervention. The principles of field psychiatry consist in that the treatment be administered near the scene of the injury, in an early phase, be of short duration, be focused here and now, and be characterised by prognostic optimism; moreover the victim must retain his group identity. Many of these intervention techniques are now successfully used at disaster and crises in peacetime, e.g. at the recent ferry disaster on the Scandinavian Star.