The question of whether or not depressive personality disorder is a distinct disorder separate from mood disorders or other personality disorders has historically been debated by researchers and theorists and continues to be a topic of disagreement. Empirical studies reveal that only a modest relationship may exist between depressive personality disorder, mood disorders, and other personality d...

OBJECTIVE Dysthymia constitutes a chronic, mild affective disorder characterized by heterogeneous treatment effects. Several predictors of clinical response and attendance have been postulated, although research on the role of the psychological variables involved in this mental disorder is still scarce. METHOD Fifty-four adult patients, who met criteria for dysthymia completed an ongoing natu...

Prior studies have found abnormalities of functional brain asymmetry in patients having a major depressive disorder (MDD). This study aimed to replicate findings of reduced right hemisphere advantage for perceiving dichotic complex tones in depressed patients, and to determine whether patients having "pure" dysthymia show the same abnormality of perceptual asymmetry as MDD. It also examined gen...

Mental disorders are highly prevalent and cause considerable suffering and disease burden. To compound this public health problem, many individuals with psychiatric disorders remain untreated although effective treatments exist. We examine the extent of this treatment gap. We reviewed community-based psychiatric epidemiology studies that used standardized diagnostic instruments and included dat...

BACKGROUND Although several studies have shown that life adversities play an important role in the etiology and maintenance of both depressive and anxiety disorders, little is known about the relative specificity of several types of life adversities to different forms of depressive and anxiety disorder and the concurrent role of neuroticism. Few studies have investigated whether clustering of l...

Dysthymic disorder can be characterized as a mild depression and persistent, lasting at least two years. Are described the symptoms more experienced on the subjective plane than objective? Mild neurovegetative symptom with long duration is the most frequent symptom experienced by the patients and is the landmark to differential diagnosis. It is interesting to investigate the relationship of the...

A 37-year-old woman with a personality disorder and chronic dysthymia developed a dependence on MAOIs. She ingested 440 mg tranylcypromine daily without any side-effects while taking no dietary precautions. The features of MAOI dependence and their resemblance to amphetamine dependence are discussed.