IN THE LONG-RUN

The main theme of the 24th Scandinavian Congress of Psychiatry was ''Long-Term Prognosis and Treatment''. In my keynote speech I discussed linguistic problems encountered when the concept of maintenance treatment is discussed in related but different languages such as Danish, Swedish and German. In psychiatric long-term treatment it is particularly important that pharmacotherapy and psychological support go hand in hand, and I gave an example of how physician and patient may differ in their idea of how the possibility of interaction of drug treatment and creativity should be handled. Studies of how long-term treatment affects the patients' mortality were discussed, as were perspectives - salutary of frightening - for the more distant future.