• affective disorder
• bipolar disorder
• neuropsychology
• psychopathology
• temperament

Nevertheless a large number of studies, exploring temperament in affective disorder, exists yet we found clinical rationale in further investigation.
1) A muticentric study gives a large amount of cases and an useful perspective of italian academic sample of affective patients.
2) The renewed interest in personality features of affective disorders creates intriguing pharmaco- and psycho- therapy implications
3) We agree with Akiskal who argues, that in relationship with its increasing epidemiology, the frequent comorbidity, the peculiar treatment profile, bipolar disorder may represent a paradigm in actual psychiatric research.

In the present work we aim to focus on affective disorders as distinct nosographic categories, following major international classification, being aware yet that evidences for an unitary approach to a single “mood disease” are emerging.

Summarizing, the present work supports the need for a more complex approach to affective disorders, an approach that try to overtake pure nosological categories, focusing on personologic and neuropsychological features, in order to define the varied, protean “world” of affective disorders