Bipolar disorder (BD) used to be considered as a pure biological condition, with episodic course and good remissions. Nowadays long-term consequences and psychosocial disturbances persisting beyond manic or depressive episodes have been recognized. Priory, acute phase treatment was the main target of therapeutic strategies. Currently the maintenance treatment and prevention including periods of remission but beginning already in the acute phase became the most important aims of BD treatment. The consequence of such an approach is the inclusion of psychotherapy and social interventions in combination with pharmacotherapy. Psychotherapy enables achieving social recovery, relapse prevention as well as improvement of compliance which determines largely the efficacy of treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy presents especially encouraging results in this field.