Drawing on the experience of evaluating over 2000 emergency room patients, Rene Muller explores the important role of psychiatry in emergency room medicine. He discusses some of his most challenging cases, showing how psychiatry comes to the aid of medicine in managing the crises - real, imagined, and contrived - that are the everyday fare of clinicians who work in the ER. We are introduced to a world in which lies are exposed, manipulations revealed, diagnoses made, medications adjusted, and even very brief psychotherapy attempted.

Muller begins with patient narratives rooted in the...