[Duration of antidepressive treatment. Recurrences and their prevention]

The basic strategy for the pharmacological treatment of depression, with special regard to its continuance following the start of remission, is outlined. The problem of the prevention of recurrences of dysthymic symptomatology is discussed and emphasis laid on the importance of lithium about whose use a fair literature is already available. The results obtained to date demonstrate the undoubted advantages of lithium salts (particularly of carbonate) in the maintenance of good affective balance, above all in the case of those subjects in whom the frequency or gravity of dysthymia seriously handicaps working or social life.