Cyclothymia

Belongs together with Dysthymia to the group of persistent mood disorders.


 * Repeating depressive and hypomanic episodes over a period of over 2 years, that do not meet criteria of bipolar ll → often called "milder form of Bipolar ll disorder", because the symptoms not severe enough to classify it as bipolar disorder.
 * Remissions last 2 months or less!! i.e. the patient will not really go to base-line (euthymia) during that time, but remain either mildly depressive or mildly hypomanic (imagine a sinusoidal curve, where the x-axis represents normal mood/euthymia)
 * Patients can develop later on bipolar affective disorder