ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the practical aspects of short-term inpatient care as well as its theoretical aspects. During the past 30 years, short-term inpatient programs have become well established in both general hospital and psychiatric hospital settings. Short-term inpatient care is one very important part of the total spectrum of comprehensive psychiatric services. Many elements have gone into the development of short-term inpatient treatment programs, one of the most significant concepts has been that of crisis theory. Crisis theory offers much in understanding the nature of an acute mental illness and the circumstances of its onset. Short-term therapy is a crisis intervention approach. The concept of milieu therapy is based in large part on the premise that an inpatient psychiatric unit is a social system. It is of vital importance of having a multidisciplinary staff team for the development and operation of a short-term inpatient unit. The essential treatment medium in a short-term psychiatric inpatient unit is, quite simply, people.
