L'HOPITAL DE JOUR: POUR L'EBAUCHE D'UNE CLINIQUE DES ETATS EN COURS DE TRAITEMENT

In order to put to the best possible use the economic and statutory contraints related to the creation of a day hospital in Professor D. Widlocher's Department of Psychiatry (Pitie-Salpetriere Paris), a metaphoric model which highlights the avantages of limited-duration stays in day units is proposed. This model is based on the rule of unity in time and space followed by the classical playwrights. According to this rule, each scene is placed between a 'before' whose events and 'dramatic' value must be called up, and an 'afterwards' which results from the present scene. The very concrete material conditions therapeutic modalities, and institutional possibilities of day-hospital care are placed within the framework of this model. From a more practical viewpoint, questions raised immediately after a psychopathologic episode of which several elements responded to drug therapy can be approached. Three examples are presented herein i.e., a treated depressive episode, acute delusions treated by neuroleptics and a mixed disorder treated by multiple drugs.