In Norway, a novel treatment concept for psychiatric patients has been in place for about ten years: self-admission. In self-admission, patients who are well-known to a service who have high previous utilization of health care are offered the possibility of self-admission to the inpatient ward for up to seven days without having their motive for admission questioned. Patients are free to admit themselves because of deteriorating mental health, acute stress, lack of structure in their everyday life, loneliness, boredom, or any other reason. The patients decide when they want to admit themselves and can discharge themselves at any time. The purpose behind the self-admission model is to increase the availability of inpatient care for severely ill patients, to avoid stressful and possibly destructive visits to the emergency service, and to decrease total inpatient care utilization. Patients offered a contract for self-admission usually have a history of repeated and prolonged hospitalizations. By encouraging them to monitor their own mental health status and allowing them to seek help swiftly when they are feeling poorly, the delay from first signs of deterioration to admission can be minimized and full-blown relapse can be avoided, ultimately reducing the total time spent in hospital.