World Psychiatric Association

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The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) is an international umbrella organization of 135 associations from psychiatry and health care. Acting President (as of 2017) is Dinesh Bhugra (Great Britain) and Acting Secretary General (as of 2017) is Roy Abraham Kallivayalil (India).

German-speaking members of the WPA are the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN), the Austrian Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (ÖGPP) and the Swiss Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (SGPP). Worldwide societies from 117 countries with over 200,000 psychiatrists are represented by the WPA.

history

The WPA emerged from the Association mondiale de psychiatrie founded by Henri Ey in 1950 . In 1950, together with Jean Delay , he organized the first World Congress of Psychiatry in Paris, followed by the second in Zurich in 1957. The formal establishment of the WPA in 1961 led to wider international recognition.

tasks

The aim of the EPA is to create an international professional unit of experts. To this end, the WPA unites psychiatrists of different national and cultural origins, different schools, different areas of interest and ideological directions under one roof.

Another task is to expand and promote knowledge about mentally ill people and to take care of them. The WPA regularly organizes international congresses every few years. In 1977, prompted by complaints of political abuse of psychiatry, the WPA formulated ethical guidelines for psychiatric treatment. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the WPA, in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), has devoted itself increasingly to psychiatric training.

Antistigma program "Open the doors"

In August 1999, at the 11th Psychiatric World Congress in Hamburg, the anti-stigma program “Open the Doors” was founded. This worldwide program aims to help reduce stigma and discrimination against people with schizophrenia . The program is implemented by different countries on the following continents: Africa (Egypt), Asia (China, India), Australia / Oceania (Australia, New Zealand), Europe (Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Great Britain) and North America (Canada).

Web links

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