Utilité des lits de crise en pédopsychiatrie : expérience du dispositif de l’hôpital Vincent Van Gogh

The notions of crisis and emergency are frequently mixed up by family members, as well as by many professionals, although they are not synonymous. In child psychiatry, an emergency is an acute pathological situation which is associated with the idea that the child's life is in danger. While an emergency requires immediate care, a crisis requires the development of new ways of seeing and navigating the world, as well as new adaptive mechanisms to deal with these changes. Following the new child-adolescent mental health policy developed by the Belgian Ministry of Public Health in 2015, the therapeutic unit for adolescents (10 to 18-year-old) at the Vincent Van Gogh Hospital dedicated two of its fifteen beds to the treatment of child psychiatric crises. The objective of this paper is to present the functioning of the “crisis beds” device within the hospital unit. We will begin with a definition of the notion of crisis and of the theoretical models of intervention offered in clinics. This will be followed by an explanation of the historical context behind the implementation of the crisis beds in the Vincent Van Gogh hospital and a description of how this device works. We will conclude with an overview of three clinical cases which illustrate the extent of the treatment provided in the crisis unit and the different possible outcomes at the end of the stay. The influence of individual intrapsychic and systemic factors on the crisis and its aftermath will be highlighted through these cases.