Intensive Psychotherapy for Acute Psychiatric Patients in a Day Hospital Setting in Israel

Abstract

The psychiatric services in the field of community psychiatry in Israel have developed in a number of directions over the past decade. Following the establishment by the Workers' Sick Fund (Kupat Holim) of a Rehabilitation Unit for chronic psychiatric patients (Wijsenbeek and Lindner (53)) and the opening of a Day Hospital for acute cases in conjunction with a psychiatric hospital (Ramot and Jaffe (45)), a Day Hospital was established in October 1968, at the Out-Patient Mental Health Clinic (Ramat Chen), to serve acute psychiatric patients. This represented the first attempt of its kind in Israel. The professional literature on Day Hospitals, which in the main describes a ‘half-way out’ type of hospital (Farndale (16); Epps and Hanes (14); Kramer (32)), also reports the existence of a ‘half-way in’ type of institution, operating as an autonomous service catering to a particular geographical region, without being attached directly to a mental hospital. This kind of Day Hospital, specifically designed for acute cases, has not yet been tried in Israel.