To Hospitalize or Not: Making Difficult Decisions in Clinical Practice

Abstract

Working with clients in psychological crisis can be overwhelming. Clinicians may feel solely responsible for the safety of everyone involved, and making the right decision about whether or not to hospitalize a client is hard. The situations are complicated, and each option inevitably carries risks. There are many models for how to assess a client's safety, but at the end of the hour, clinicians are still left wondering exactly what to do. The concept of heuristical thinking is useful in that it describes how individuals use information to make decisions in ambiguous situations. When people know how they think in times of crisis, they can take concrete steps to make safe and effective choices for their clients and themselves.