From the Individual to the Social to the Individual in Social Context in 60 Years

THE ORIGINS OF THE WORLD ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL PSYCHIATRY IN LONDON, UK IN 1964 With this commemorative issue, we are celebrating more than 60 years of social psychiatry since the founding of the World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP) and the 6th year of our WASP journal, World Social Psychiatry. The origins of WASP are with the founding of the International Association of Social Psychiatry (IASP) in London, UK in 1964 by Dr. Joshua Bierer and others committed to the cause of social psychiatry. After two social congresses in London, UK, IASP became known as WASP with our III International Congress in Zagreb in what was then Yugoslavia in 1970. Bierer was also the founding editor of the International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Founder and Chairman of the Institute of Social Psychiatry in London, and Founder and Chairman of the British Association of Social Psychiatry. He was a creative trail blazer who we remember as a dedicated clinician, organizer, philosopher of psychiatry, and above all, as a social psychiatrist for his contributions to understanding and promoting the social in psychiatry and mental health. Trained in Austria with Alfred Adler, an early disciple of Freud with a more socially oriented approach, Bierer practiced in Berlin, Germany, and Vienna going to Britain to become the first consultant psychotherapist in a public mental hospital.[1–4] Bierer was central to all the key developments of his day in psychotherapy and social psychiatry. He published extensively on community care and the rehabilitation of patients with chronic disabilities and an enthusiastic lecturer, much in demand in the UK and abroad.[1,2,5–8] His obituary in the British Medical Journal lauded him as “one of the Jewish exiles from Austria and Nazi Germany who have enriched British psychiatry and contribute widely to its present status.”[9] There have been 16 presidents from IASP founder Joshua Bierer to Vincenzo Di Nicola, the current WASP President [Table 1: IASP/WASP Presidents].[10]Table 1: International Association of Social Psychiatry (IASP)/World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP) PresidentsThere have been 24 congresses of social psychiatry since the inaugural congress in London in 1964. For the first two congresses, our association was known as the International Association of Social Psychiatry (IASP). After that, the name changed to the WASP and the Third to Fifth meetings were called International Congresses, after which WASP meetings were called World Congresses.[2–4] We will celebrate more than 60 years of WASP at our 25th Congress in Marrakech, Morocco, January 15–17, 2026, with the theme: “Caring for the Vulnerable: Making Social Psychiatry Clinically Relevant” [Table 2: IASP/WASP Social Psychiatry Congresses].[11]Table 2: International Association of Social Psychiatry (IASP)/World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP) Social Psychiatry CongressesOur now more than 60 years have seen many accomplishments and milestones. Here are some of them [Table 3: Selected WASP Highlights].Table 3: Selected World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP) HighlightsWORLD ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL PSYCHIATRY’S CONTINUAL EVOLUTION – MEMBER SOCIETIES, SECTIONS, AND AWARDS There are currently 11 WASP sections (https://waspsocialpsychiatry.org/specialty-sections/) and growing with interest in a primary care mental health section. Our 27 WASP member associations and societies are active throughout the world with significant representation in Europe, North and South America, and Southeast Asia, and growing interest in Africa with Morocco, our well-established North African stalwart, and a new proposed Wester African Association of Social Psychiatry (https://waspsocialpsychiatry.org/associations/). WASP actively promotes mentoring the next generation with an active Early Career Psychiatrist Section and Fellowships. It also celebrates established leaders with WASP Honorary Fellowships and the prestigious Yves Pelicier Prize. OVERVIEW OF OUR 60TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE This special issue celebrates WASP’s history and accomplishments with a varied palette of contributions, including aspects of WASP history by the WASP Council of Past Presidents (Kallivayalil, et al.), a feature article on migration and social psychiatry (WASP Immediate Past President Bennegadi), and a profile of Raymond Prince, a Canadian pioneer of social and transcultural psychiatry (current WASP President Di Nicola). Three WASP Sections make contributions – Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Pumariega, et al.), Early Career Psychiatrists (Carandang), and Family Interventions (Hodé). WASP member societies contributing to this issue include Argentina (Maddocks), Canada (Di Nicola), India (Basu & Gupta; Gupta, et al.; Kallivayalil, et al.), Japan (Asai & Maruhashi), Switzerland (Bonsack, et al.), and the USA (Gyan & Jeste; Jordan, et al.; Pumariega, et al.). Allied associations have sent commentaries and good wishes including the World Association of Dynamic Psychiatry (WADP by Ammon and Botbol), the World Psychiatric Association (WPA by President Wasserman), the World Federation for Psychotherapy (WFP by its President Alfonso), and the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry (WACP by Bhui, a Past President). Special topics range from affective neuroscience (Lee), autism (Itsuo), to mental health in American Black churches (Jordan), relational psychiatry (Farnsworth), and principles for person-friendly mental health services (Salmoiroghi). Finally, we have a book review of a scholarly volume on the history of social psychiatry in the USA (Di Nicola).[17] CONCLUSION Arguing to go beyond the individual narrowly defined biologically and psychologically, Norman Sartorius and many other leaders in world psychiatry have argued for the social in psychiatry as fundamental to a definition of our field and our notion of mental health.[18–22] It has been my argument as WASP President that we can never rest and must make the case in each generation and with each group.[23,24] As an example, WASP has seen the rise and fall of the biopsychosocial model[25] which devolved into “bio-bio-bio.” We have witnessed the documenting of social stress,[26] the Social Determinants of Health,[27] and our allies in the Global Mental Health Movement adopting the mantra, “No health without mental health.”[28,29] WASP has been affirming this for more than 60 years, arguing for what WASP Past President António Guilherme Ferreira (1988–1992) called the “sociogenetic” perspective.[3] As Jules Masserman, another Past President of WASP (1969–1974) affirmed, social psychiatry moves from “individual to global.”[30] We must now make this a reciprocal process and bring the powerful data of psychiatric epidemiology and the Social Determinants of Health (the global perspective) to bear on the work of all clinicians, from primary care to specialized care across all the professions (the individual understood in social context), to make social psychiatry relevant in everyday clinical care. Accordingly, the theme of our 25th World Congress of Social Congress in Marrakech, Morocco, January 15–17, 2026, is “Caring for the Vulnerable: Making Social Psychiatry Clinically Relevant.”

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