Book excerpt: Originally published in 1986, this volume presents the clinical and administrative aspects of emergency psychiatry from the point of view of the clinician administrator involved in organizing and running an emergency service. Part 1 provides an administrative overview of psychiatric emergency care – the development of the field, the concepts, the patient profile, the team, the architecture, fiscal planning, legal constraints as well as training and research issues. Part 2 describes psychiatric emergency care delivery systems in the emergency department, the average hospital wards, the community mental health centers and health maintenance organizations. Part 3 gives examples of the process of administration – in one instance how a psychiatric emergency service developed, in the other how one functions day to day and what themes recur administratively. Part 4 focuses on protocols and models useful to the emergency service administrator: protocols, records, standards of care, politics, liaison with the court, mobile response, collaborative arrangements and disaster preparedness. Part 5 provides an annotated bibliography which reviews and draws attention to the relevant literature for the clinicians and administrators to use in practicing emergency psychiatry.