Decades of deinstitutionalisation have played a key role in the evolution of psychiatric emergency facilities. What began initially as a triage-based service now caters to the complex needs of modern psychiatry and takes into account the ever-increasing patient numbers, difficulties in accessing specialist services, the importance of early recognition of mental disorders and the need for a more continuous provision of care. Owing to the increasing complexity of services it provides, emergency psychiatry is now recognised as a subspecialty in its own right, bridging the interface between the specialties of psychiatry and emergency medicine. Erroneously touted as the “first comprehensive book” of emergency psychiatry, this book nevertheless comes as a welcome addition to the fledgling body of information that informs the …