World Psychiatric Association

The World Psychiatric Association is an international umbrella organisation of psychiatric societies.

Objectives and goals
Originally created to produce world psychiatric congresses, it has evolved to hold regional meetings, to promote professional education and to set ethical, scientific and treatment standards for psychiatry.

History
Jean Delay was the first president of the organisation when it was started in 1950. D. Ewen Cameron became the second president at the formal founding in 1961. Mario Maj is president as of 2008.

Structure
The institutional members of the World Psychiatric Association are 135 national psychiatric societies representing more than 180,000 psychiatrists worldwide. The societies are clustered into 18 Zones and 5 Regions: the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. Representatives of the societies constitute the World Psychiatric Association General Assembly, the governing body of the organization. The association also has individual members and there are provisions for affiliation of other associations (e.g., those dealing with a particular topic in psychiatry).

Publication
The official publication of the association is World Psychiatry.

Activities
The association has helped establish a code of professional ethics for psychiatrists. The association has also looked into charges regarding China's treatment of the Falun Gong.