Many patients consulting medical emergency services make the initial contac
t because of psychiatric emergency situations. However, emergency physician
s and their assistants are usually not sufficiently experienced in psychiat
ry. Therefore, psychiatric emergencies are sometimes only reluctantly accep
ted or inadequately treated by these services. Our present contribution aim
s at improving this situation. It gives a review of the main diagnostic gro
ups concerned, their symptomatology and psychopathology,and offers some adv
ice with regard to empathic verbal interventions and counselling in those e
mergency situations.