If you believe you - or somebody close to you - has a medical psychiatric condition (depression, nervous breakdown, psychosis, suicidal thoughts and so on), your first contact point is your local doctor. They can then refer you to an appropriate specialist or advise you how to proceed. It is possible to go straight to open sessions at many psychiatric special units but the waiting time can be long and there is no guarantee you’ve selected the correct specialist.

Emergency psychiatric teams available for call-out if a situation is urgent and many hospitals have specialist wards for short or long-term stays. The best place to start if in need of emergency help is to call 112.

There is a national help line available for psychiatric advice on    020 22 00 60. It is a free call and you can ring anonymously or on behalf of someone. They are open in the evenings but it can be busy and take some time to get through. More information is available at www.nationellahjalplinjen.se.

Another point of contact is PHIR – Psychiatric health information register  www.phir.se is an internet service listing all forms of support in the public and private sector as well as voluntary organisations. While it started as a Stockholm-based site they aim to make information country wide. There is a lot of useful information here, including a definition of professions and types of help available. Unfortunately it is only available in Swedish.

Specialist clinics exist for children and young people. BUP (Barn och ungdomspskiatri) provides counselling services free of charge to young people and their families. You do not need a referral and there are emergency services available. They are also specialised to deal with problems such as asylum seekers, disabled children, sexually abused children and so on. This website www.bup.nu is primarily for teenagers in Stockholm needing help or wanting to know more about psychiatric care. However, the website include a lot of useful links for people all over Sweden:
-    A list of all BUPs can be found through ‘länkar’ (links) and then ‘mottagningar’ (clinics);
-    Hjälptelefoner lists the Help Lines;
-    Habitering lists links for people with a disability;
-    Patient- och intresseorganisationer lists organisations for people suffering from mental illness.

There are also links relevant to adoption and under “övriga” you will find a range of “other” links.