How Inpatient Mental Health Treatment Works (Is It Right for Me?)

Inpatient psychiatric treatment is an essential, life-saving level of mental health care that more people should know about and use but is still widely feared, stigmatized, and misunderstood.

Going to a hospital is simply what you do to get the right level of care when you’re in crisis. The only difference between a medical and mental health crisis is that you go to a psychiatric hospital (or unit) when it’s a mental health crisis, and a medical hospital when it’s a medical one.

Not everyone who needs or wants therapy will ever need inpatient treatment, but some will—and that’s okay. It’s there for exactly when you need it and for only as long as you need to be there. The goal of inpatient treatment is always to get you stable enough to continue your treatment in the community.

You may never need inpatient mental health care. But will you know what to do or what to expect if you do need it—or if a loved one does? We want to shine a light on this vital service and bust the myths that keep people from getting it when it is what they need.

Anyone can experience a severe mental health episode, regardless of their history or current circumstances. And inpatient treatment is what you need when you do.

Like medical care, mental health care is a continuum designed to move you through it, not a sorting system that assigns care based on what kind of person you are.

And inpatient care is simply what you need when your mental health symptoms become too severe to safely manage on your own.

It’s possible for transient psychosis (which can include delusions, hallucinations, or disordered thinking) to be triggered by anything that changes your mental status (see the list above).

However, it’s more common to experience a psychotic episode in the course of a chronic psychotic disorder like schizophrenia. And if you have a psychotic disorder, your road to recovery often begins with your first hospital admission and continues with follow-up care in the community.

Mood disorders sometimes cause psychosis, especially during severe manic episodes, but one of the main reasons people go to the hospital to get treatment for them is because of the severe depressive episodes they can cause.

Depressive episodes can come on suddenly or build slowly. What makes them insidious is how quickly and quietly they can become severe.

What starts as mild depression can slowly suck away your ability to feel joy or hope. You might withdraw from life further and further until you’re barely making it. And while you might learn how to function this way, you can sometimes get to a point where you just can’t anymore. And that might be the point when you need inpatient care.

Sadly, inpatient mental health care can be hard to get, especially if you’re seeking it voluntarily.

In other words, just because you want inpatient care and think it could help doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get it.

Since there aren’t enough inpatient beds to meet the need in most states in America, inpatient facilities often have to limit care to the people with the most severe symptoms.

This means it can be hard to get admitted to a psychiatric hospital in many places unless you’re at risk of harming yourself or others—which means you meet criteria for involuntary admission, too.

The good news is that it’s not that hard to get admitted to inpatient treatment if you’re at risk of harming yourself or others. The bad news is that you may or may not be able to get inpatient care if your mental health crisis doesn’t quite rise to that level. Ultimately, whether you qualify for inpatient admission depends on where you are and the availability of care in your area.

If you’re not sure whether your symptoms are severe enough to go to the hospital, don’t assume anything until you talk to someone first. If you’re in crisis, it’s important to get help as quickly as possible. And the best way to do that is to call a mental health hotline.

If you’re in crisis, and you’re not sure where to go or who to call, we recommend calling:

• The National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 988,
• Another crisis hotline that specifically addresses your situation or needs, or
• Your local (or regional) mental health crisis line, which you can find on our page for your state’s mental health system.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline, local mental health crisis lines, and many other mental health hotlines can identify and connect you with local crisis resources.

They can can guide you through the process of getting where you need to go to get the right level of care, whether that’s inpatient hospitalization or an appointment with a therapist.

They can also connect to what you’re feeling and going through right here and now and provide compassionate guidance, support, and affirmation that you can recover from this.

Let’s say you’ve sought admission to an inpatient treatment facility, and you’ve been accepted. What should you expect when you arrive?

First, don’t expect to be there too terribly long. A 2012 study found that the average length of inpatient treatment for people with serious mental illness was 7-13 days. A 2004 study found that the average length of stay was 15 days and “absence of serious mental illness was significantly associated with shorter length of stay.”

This means as soon as your severe symptoms resolve, the hospital will start preparing you for discharge. And since, on average, hospital stays are only getting shorter, it means you probably shouldn’t even expect to be there a full week.

The reason psychiatric hospital stays are so much shorter than they used to be is because inpatient mental health care has a different purpose now.

In the past, psychiatric hospitals were places where people went to get long-term care because it wasn’t yet possible to manage their conditions outside of an institution.

Since then, psychiatric medications and other innovations have made it possible to treat most mental health conditions in the community. Because of this, psychiatric hospitals are now places where you go to receive acute care, or intensive short-term treatment that improves your condition to the point you can be discharged and continue your treatment on an outpatient basis.

There are two main types of facilities where you can receive inpatient mental health care: psychiatric units in general hospitals and dedicated psychiatric hospitals.

If it’s your first time getting inpatient care, or if you’ve received short-term inpatient treatment before and responded well to it, you should look for a general hospital with a psychiatric unit or a standalone private psychiatric facility that is part of a major hospital system in your area.

If you think you need inpatient care, you can call a psychiatric unit or hospital and ask to be admitted voluntarily. They may try to help you figure out if you meet admission criteria on the phone or may ask you to come there. You may have a local hospital with a mental health unit, or you may need to travel to a hospital a little further away that has one.

Depending on your symptoms and situation, the hospital may ask you to bring yourself or have a loved one bring you to the facility. Otherwise, you’ll be admitted through a local emergency department (ED), where you’ll be evaluated and kept safe until space is available at a mental health unit or facility.

If you’re admitted through the process of an involuntary psychiatric hold, you might be brought to the hospital for evaluation by a loved one or transported to the ED by law enforcement.

State psychiatric hospitals still exist, but they’re not where most people get inpatient treatment anymore, especially not the first time they go.

These large facilities are often reserved for people with chronic, severe, relapsing mental health conditions and forensic patients—people who have been admitted through the criminal justice or corrections systems.

If you’re not involved with the criminal justice system, you’ll probably only ever go to a state hospital if you have a severe mental health condition, didn’t respond to an initial episode of acute hospital care, and need longer-term treatment (30 to 90 days) to stabilize. (Note that most states have separate facilities or units for forensic and non-forensic patients.)

What do hospitals do to help you get better?

First, they might prescribe psychiatric medication. The clinical staff might recommend that you start taking medication on a long-term basis, or they might simply want you to take it on a short-term basis to help you stabilize in the hospital.

Or they might not recommend medication at all. It depends on your condition, your preferences, and your history.

Group therapy sessions can be educational, therapeutic, or both. Their goal is to help you understand your symptoms and learn how to manage them. They also help you and others in the group connect and feel understood. This can help you process and accept what happened and start to heal.

Individual therapy in an inpatient unit helps you analyze the conditions that led to your mental health crisis and hospital admission. These sessions can help you gain insight into what happened and how you can recover. They can also help you identify goals for ongoing therapy in the community.

Therapeutic activities are designed to help you feel more calm and grounded. During a mental health crisis, your nervous system is overwhelmed. Soothing activities can help you heal your nerves, regain your ability to focus on the present moment, and participate in therapy more fully.

It’s only fair to acknowledge that no matter what kind of hospital it is, no one really wants to go to a hospital.

It’s also true that psychiatric hospitals have very real downsides. While they are no longer the horrifying places they once were, it’s fair to say they can still sometimes be scary places to be, especially if you’ve never been to one before.

Psychiatric units and facilities treat a wide range of patients. This means a severely depressed person who cringes at how loud a shuffling newspaper sounds can be put on the same unit as someone who is experiencing a psychotic episode and screaming at the top of their lungs.

At any kind of hospital, you might be around people who are crying, yelling, or in distress, and might feel a certain sense of sadness or claustrophobia.

You might also witness or experience things that doctors or other staff do to try to treat patients or keep them safe that are upsetting to see, such as making people take medications when they don’t want to take them.

To maintain the safety of everyone on the unit, both medical and psychiatric hospitals sometimes still use restraints. However, their use is highly regulated and hospitals can lose their licenses if they use them inappropriately or too much. Don’t expect this to happen, but understand if it does, it’s to keep everyone safe.

You might actually enjoy your experience on a psychiatric unit, or you might not. Either way, remember that your team is working hard to help you get better and get you back home.

Most hospitals give you clear guidance on what to do after you leave and what follow-up care they think you might need.

From the moment you’re admitted to the hospital, your clinical team starts working on your discharge plan. They even see that as their most important job because what you do when you get home is what will take you from stability to recovery.

In rare cases, psychiatric hospitalization is all you need to resolve a mental health crisis. However, it’s much more likely that you’ll need ongoing outpatient care after leaving the hospital so you can manage the condition that brought you there (and so you don’t need to go back later).

For example, if you went to the hospital to get treatment for depression, your clinical team might recommend that you start taking an antidepressant and follow up with a physician at a community mental health center or primary care clinic. Instead, or in addition, they may recommend therapy and give you a referral to a private practitioner or a therapist at a local counseling agency.

Depending on your circumstances, your team may recommend additional treatments. They might encourage you to attend support groups or to follow a nutrition or exercise plan. If you have any co-occurring conditions (such as medical or substance use disorders), they will refer you to providers or programs that can help you address them.

Your discharge plan is also an important way the hospital promotes what they call “continuity of care.” With your permission, they will forward it to any outpatient mental health providers you’re scheduled to see so they can understand what you’ve been through and what you might need to do to get better.

Your new outpatient mental health team might tweak and update your treatment plan as they learn more about you, but they will start with what’s on your discharge plan. It’s also a good document for you to reference if you’re feeling lost or unsure about how your recovery is going. Following that plan and getting good follow-up care will help you stay on track.

We hope the information in this article will help you recognize the signs if you ever need to go to the hospital and know how to reach out for the care you need if you’re in crisis.

We also hope it’s helped to demystify what you’ll experience in a hospital if you go. It’s simply a safe place where you can get therapy and other care until you’ve recovered enough to go home.

Getting inpatient psychiatric treatment isn’t something to be ashamed about. It’s just the level of care you need when a mental health crisis puts you at risk of harm. As soon as you get the treatment you need, you’ll be released with recommendations on how to stay well and continue to recover.

Going to the hospital when you’re having a mental health emergency might help you get better faster than you otherwise could. It could help when nothing else does. It might even save your life.