Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a disabling psychiatric condition for which eective treatment remains an outstanding need. A range of augmentation and combination strategies have been used in order to improve outcomes for patients. Recently, evidence has shown that adjunctive therapy with atypical antipsychotic such as Aripiprazole has the potential for benecial antidepressant eects in the absence of psychotic symptoms. Prof. Serretti will review the up to date strategies including the use of Aripiprazole partial dopamine agonist in both bipolar and treatment refractory major depressive disorders whereas Prof. Nesrin Dilbaz will present the Eect of Antidepressant Switching vs Augmentation on Remission Among Patients With Major Depressive Disorder Unresponsive to Antidepressant Treatment. Prof. Signorelli will discuss Bipolar Disorder which is an oen-complex disorder that requires many dierent types of knowledge and expertise to treat. She will cover the nature of the problem, causes, sources of help and treatment, recovery. Prof. Oguz Karamustafalıoğlu will present the treatment of Bipolar difficult cases.

There are several forms of treatments that may be used for depression. There are highly structured psychological treatments that can be applied to most depressive disorders such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive erapy and Metacognitive therapy that look promising and may oer some advantages over other treatments. Assoc. Prof. Neslihan Akkişi Kumsar will present Metacognitive therapy for depression that is based on the idea that depression is maintained by unhelpful and difficult to control thinking patterns dominated by rumination and excessive self-focused attention on thoughts and feelings.

Prof. Dilbaz will focus on Attention Decit Hyperactivity Disorder, a largely underrecognized disorder, which needs appropriate treatments in order to avoid worsening of the disorder itself with a focus on novel treatments.

Prof. Oğuz Karamustafalioğlu will provide an overview on the treatment of panic disorder, which is frequently considered an easy to treat disorder but there are challenges in cases of treatment resistant panic disorder.

Looking forward to welcoming you in Catania in April!