Abstract

The most accepted definition of urgency in psychiatry is that of a situation of acute and severe mental and behavioral suffering, which requires immediate treatment. Therefore, in the situation defined as “psychiatric urgency”, a descriptive and nosographic element (acute), a prognostic element (severity) and a therapeutic element (need for immediate treatment) coexists. In any case, it remains difficult and complex, sometimes enigmatic, to understand the acute episode within the course of a specific pathology. It is a matter of having to oscillate in front of the patient “between the madness of a moment and the madness of an existence” [1]. By the way, contribution from philosophical discourse may be helpful to clarify the psychopathological structure of acute psychiatric urgencies.