The paper discusses mental disorders which call for urgent medical assistance. It is a series of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in psychopathological conditions which may threaten immediately or potentially the patient's behaviour. The first contact with the patient is usually not established by the psychiatrist but the doctor or staff of the medical emergency service. Conditions calling for urgent intervention may differ greatly as to the features of the clinical picture as well as the extent of necessary therapeutic provisions. It is important to keep in mind that psychopathological conditions threaten the patient by pathophysiological mechanisms as well as by pathological behaviour in the sense of suicide or self-destruction (without the intention to kill himself) or complete exhaustion of the organism or they threaten the patients' environment by their a

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