The mobile unit: A new approach in Mental Health

Abstract

The recent development of the mental health center movement and the role of the community in the mental health field has, in recent years, changed the treatment modalities and approaches of the mentally ill. The urban ghettos are vivid examples of these changes, particularly in the area of emergency psychiatric care. The Lincoln Community Mental Health Center, an affiliated program of Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University located in the southeast Bronx, one of the most deprived areas of our nation, has developed in the last four years new approaches in dealing with psychiatric emergency crises. A full description of the center and, particularly, the Mobile Crisis Intervention and Suicidal Prevention Unit is presented. This unit has proved itself successful in handling most of the “crises situations” encountered in this ghetto community. An analysis of the results and the factors responsible in obtaining these results are presented. Evidently this new form of “psychiatric approach to emergency situations” opens new avenues in reaching the “poor” and offers new grounds for research and training in the areas of social and community psychiatry.