 Over recent years an approach with the adjunctive administration of various anticonvulsant drugs has been discussed and a limited number of open and controlled studies were performed for carbamazepine, valproic acid, and lamotrigine. While the latter shows promising effects in the long run it has some handling difficulties in the acute treatment of acute psychotic exacerbations. Valproic acid has shown inconsistent effects in schizophrenia with no significant effects in a recent controlled study. Although still controversially discussed, carbamazepine was found to offer beneficial effects in the treatment of schizophrenia. Nonetheless, data on these effects are limited by small sample sizes or poor design of most of the respective studies. Furthermore, the complex pharmacological interactions of new atypical neuroleptics with carbamazepine underline the necessity of alternative strategies in adjuvant treatment of schizophrenia as well as in combined treatment of bipolar disorders with mood stabilizers and neuroleptics. 