Future Psychiatry: a "Think Tank" for the Italian Psychiatry

The Future Psychiatry Project was founded with the goal to address the critical ratio of research/training/clinic. In a series of regular meetings, each devoted to a specific clinical topic, data and more advanced models for the clinical area in question will be analyzed in an integrated and multidisciplinary approach and the real possibility of extension of development and prospects of scientific advances to the clinic and therapy will be evaluated. The primary methodological objective of the Future Psychiatry meetings is the training method to overcome the common type of teacher/learner classroom teaching, albeit divided into the various possibilities offered by different types of educational meetings. The structure is informal, with features of intensive seminars and suggested modes for better interaction. The objective is the "Think Tank", a common space for study and exchange of knowledge, experiences, opinions and expectations, aimed at producing an integrated and shared dynamic result, that can provide a real reference point for participants and for all researchers and clinicians engaged in improving their level of updating and best clinical activity. The first Future Psychiatry meeting was held in Sermoneta (Latina) in the halls of the Castello Caetani on September 16th to 18th 2010. The chosen topic was "The Future of Depression: the development of knowledge, the evolution of therapies". The currently most advanced data of research were discussed and developed in their potential to reach a shared model taking into account the etiological complexity of Depression and to be a real reference to the possibility of application to real clinical experience. The main guidelines of the current research and major prospects for development of this in the field Depression have been outlined, also in relation to the ongoing evolution and the future outlook of the models and tools of therapy. Psychiatrists' clinical needs and expectations in front of the development of scientific knowledge were analyzed in relation to the translational prospect of a better application of these in the clinical practice of present and future care of Depression.