Psychiatry in Transition

“Psychiatry in transition” was the tagline of the 46th Congress of Polish Psychiatrists, which was held on June 24-26, 2021 in Szczecin. As it soon turned out, the 100th anniversary of the Polish Psychiatric Association marked a real breakthrough for both psychiatry and medicine.

A sudden and unexpected necessity to face the greatest epidemic of the 21st century caught everyone – both us and our patients by unwelcome surprise. Due to the continuous threat, the Main Board and the Scientific Committee of the Polish Psychiatric Association decided to hold the Congress in a new, hybrid formula. Some of the participants took part in the event on site in Szczecin, others had the opportunity to join us online, i.e. watch, listen to, and ask questions to specific speakers from anywhere in the world.

We hope that the topics of numerous scientific sessions, workshops and meetings of the 46th Congress of Polish Psychiatrists will contribute to your professional development and will remain in your memory for a long time to come. In addition, we would like to remind you about the online access to all of the over 300 lectures that had been recorded, including those that were not broadcast during the Congress. As the organisers, we put every effort to make sure the three consecutive days of the conference were filled with a variety of sessions on a broad and rich spectrum of subjects of interest to all our guests.

The opening speech was given by the EPA President, Prof. Peter Falkai.

The Congress was opened by a plenary session on mental health reform in Poland, which was chaired by Jerzy Samochowiec and Małgorzata Janas-Kozik, alongside a panel of Polish and European experts – representatives of the European Psychiatric Association: EPA President-Elect, Prof. Geert Dom from Belgium, Prof. Bernardo Carpiniello from Italy and Prof. Paveł Mohr from the Czech Republic.

In the next plenary session, the President-Elect of the WPA, Prof. Danuta Wasserman (Sweden) presented the phenomenon of euthanasia among psychiatric patients.

The first day was then filled with presentations of well-known and respected European speakers and psychiatrists, including: the president of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) – Prof. Philip Gorwood (France), former president of the European Psychiatric Association – Prof. Silvana Galderisi (Italy) and one of the most esteemed contemporary psychiatrists, the co-author of the ICD-11 – Prof. Wolfgang Gaebel (Germany), who shed light on the innovations, controversies and strategies for implementing of the new, eleventh revision of the classification of diseases in the European Union.

Honorary membership of the Polish Psychiatric Association was awarded to Prof. Wolfgang Gaebel, Prof. Danuta Wasserman and Prof. Silvana Galderisi.