‘A model for what’s possible’: inside an inpatient psych unit for young adults

A new docuseries looks at one of America’s few dedicated inpatient psychiatric units for young adults and finds the most sensitive way to tell their storiesThere is no one normal day at the inpatient psychiatric unit at Northwell Zucker Hillside hospital in Queens, New York. Patients arrive to the Behavioral Health College Partnership’s 22-bed unit on a rolling basis, every day, in the immediate aftermath or still in the grips of a mental health crisis; patients leave, too, on a staggered timeline, ideally stabilized and with an ongoing outpatient treatment program in hand. There are various diagnoses, medical interventions, therapy techniques and group sessions. There are no cellphones, plenty of board games, and a supervised patio. There could be, as some staff put it in One South: Portrait of a Psych Unit, a rare documentary to embed in an inpatient psychiatric facility and the only one to focus specifically on college students, “excitement” on the unit – agitation, escalation, confrontation or restraint. Mostly, there are a lot of young adults working hard to get better.The two-part HBO docuseries, filmed over eight weeks in 2022, captures a slice of the experience for patients and the unit’s psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers and mental health workers at one of the nation’s few inpatient mental health programs designed for college students. (Crucially, the unit, which partners with 96 New York state colleges and universities and their student counseling centers, takes insurance.) Though the diagnoses and backgrounds vary, the crises faced by patients at One South are specific and acute. A 26-year-old man arrives in the aftermath of an overdose, following months of escalating suicidal thoughts. A twentysomething woman, diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, struggles with feelings of abandonment and despair, and put a gun by her bedside. A 19-year-old first-generation college student feels there is no reason to live; he arrives after spending two hours on the George Washington Bridge, contemplating jumping off. An immigrant student, isolated from her family in China, hears voices telling her she’s a failure after her GPA drops. Continue reading...