Hardbound. Emergency Psychiatry in a Changing World is a compilation of selected topics presented at the 5th World Congress of the International Association for Emergency Psychiatry held on October 1998 in Belgium. This volume discusses the dramatic increase in the number of emergencies and crisis situations in recent decades especially in general hospitals of large cities. It has been found that most psychiatric emergencies are triggered by mental breakdown of patients suffering from various psychiatric disorders caused by a series of crisis situations that have to do with familial, social and psychosocial problems. The psychiatric staff is faced with a situation where they have to set up adequate care structures to deal with these new problems. Drug addicts, homeless persons, victims of macrosocial disasters (earthquakes, plane crashes, terrorist attacks, civil wars), and the daily victims of violence (muggings, holdup, rapes) are few