[The adolescent psychiatry department: organization and initial experiences]

As in most parts of Switzerland, there was a lack of possibility to hospitalise adolescents in specialised psychiatric wards. In 1993, after a long preparatory period, it became possible to admit the first patient to the newly established adolescent psychiatric department at Basel, a subunit of the university hospital. The department is conceived as an open ward, where patients are being cared for by an interdisciplinary team of psychiatric nurses and paedagogics, besides many other professionals. Milieutherapeutic techniques, psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy are practised side by side. The conceptional ideas, gradual building of the ward and the experience of the first three years clinical experiences are summarised in this article.