The new antidepressant sertraline is in use in France since January 1997. We report the case of a 13 years old girl, who took an overdose of 28 capsules of sertraline (28-fold max. recommended daily dose).This adolescent was suffering from a major depressive disorder and from conduct disorders according to DSM IV criteria. As the symptoms were very intense, with melancholic features, we took the responsibility to give her a sertraline treatment, even if this treatment is not indicated in patients aged below 15.after a 2 weeks-treatment, the adolescent tried to commit suicide with her antidepressant. This suicidal attempt has shown the product remarkably safe when ingested at large doses:after a dose of 1400 mg, the adolescent girl experienced mild central nervous system (mild dizziness), and gastrointestinal effects (mild nausea) during 2 hours, and then remained asymptomatic under monitoring in our hospital.We did a review of literature about overdose toxicity and lethality of antidepressants among children and adolescents.While hundreds of deaths have been reported after tricyclics overdoses, no death have ever been reported after SSRI's overdoses among children and adolescents.Obviously, safety of SSRI's even after an overdose seems clear, and is a strong argument to investigate double-blind, placebo-controlled studies to measure and compare efficacy and safety and tolerability profile of SSRIs in early onset major depressive disorders.