World Psychiatry Association International Congress 2016

The South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP) is hosting a World Psychiatric Association (WPA) International Congress during November 2016 in Cape Town, South Africa. The congress will be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) from the 18th to 22th November 2016. The congress presidents will be the current WPA’s President-Elect, Dinesh Bhugra, and the current President-Elect of the SASOP, Mvuyiso Talatala.

With the recent death of Nelson Mandela in December 2013, there was a fairly general realization in South Africa, and elsewhere, that reconciliation, transformation and integration of our communities and of our clinical practice, have not been completed or, in some instances, not even undertaken yet. The theme of this congress will therefore be “Psychiatry: Integrative Care for the Community” and will explore concepts, controversies and consequences of Psychiatry’s responsibility and accountability to society in terms of its scope of practice and of what can be considered as Psychiatry’s social contract.

The congress will consider how to integrate the developing scope of current psychiatric practice with emphasis on illness prevention, health promotion, clinical care, as well as rehabilitative interventions over the course of people’s life time. The congress will deliberate on the expanding systems required for all four dimensions of care to be integrated, including: Psychiatry’s core neuroscience content and evidence-base for clinical care (biological); established psychotherapeutic process (psychological) and active social involvement (social); undertaken within particular cultural, religious and spiritual contexts (spiritual).