""Bipolar disorder is an extremely debilitating illness, in large part because of the difficulty in treating bipolar depressive disorders," Dr. David J. Miklowitz, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and colleagues write. Clinical trials support the effectiveness of adding psychotherapy to drug treatment for preventing the recurrence of depressive and manic episodes. However, the effectiveness of various strategies has been unclear."

"To investigate, the researchers compared the time to recovery and the likelihood of remaining well for 12 months after four disorder-specific psychotherapies. The 293 outpatients with bipolar I or II disorder also received drug treatment."

"About half of the patients were assigned to one of three types of intensive psychotherapy (family-focused treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, or interpersonal and social rhythm therapy) and the other half were assigned to collaborative care, which was a brief psychoeducational intervention."

"Intensive psychotherapy consisted of up to 30 sessions for 9 months, and collaborative care included 3 sessions over 6 weeks. About 66 percent of patients in all of the groups completed therapy."

"More patients in the intensive psychotherapy group recovered compared with patients in the collaborative care group, Miklowitz and colleagues report. The recovery rate at 12 months for patients in the intensive psychotherapy group was 64.4 percent; in the
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