97 The World Psychiatric Association Section of Suicidology

The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) was formally founded in 1961, but in fact started already in 1950, as the ‘Organisation of the World Congress of Psychiatry’ with Jean Delay as President and Henry Ey as Secretary General, both illustrious French psychiatrists. The goal was to implement regional conferences between world congresses, but also to build bridges between psychiatry and human sciences.

The establishment of Scientific Sections within the WPA was a critical factor ensuring the continuity of activities in the WPA between World congresses'. In the year 2007, there were sixty-five Sections.

The WPA Section on Suicidology was established on the eve of the third millennium, and has a quite recent history compared to other Sections. The path of suicidology is transdisciplinary, rather than having a definite location: its study was, at first, the object of philosophy, then of literature, theology, social sciences, only in the last two centuries has it acquired a medical character, specifically in psychiatry. Also in the psychiatric area, suicidology settled in a ‘trans’ fashion, namely acquiring a ‘trans-nosographical’ characterization, cutting across several psychiatric diagnoses. Possibly for this reason, a Section on suicidology within the World Psychiatric Association was necessary, serving as a vessel for a fluid entity as the study of suicidal behaviours.

The World Psychiatric Association and the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) met in 1971 in Mexico together at the behest of Erwin Stengel, president of IASP at the time. Meanwhile, research in suicidology and suicide prevention developed with a collaboration between psychiatrists, mental health professionals and volunteers.

Discussions on the necessity for a Section on suicidology started with the initiative of Sergio Perez Barrero from Cuba, supported by José Manuel Bertolote, who was a WHO Officer in the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in Geneva. The Section was confirmed by the WPA Executive Board during the international congress and Jubilee of WPA in Paris, France, in 2000.

It is a rule of the WPA that a Section cannot start before having the election of an executive board during the triennial world congress. Therefore, in 2002 in Yokohama, the WPA asked J.M. Bertolote to organize and chair the election. The first elected Chairman of the Section was Jean-Pierre Soubrier (France), former President of IASP during 1995–1997. The three elected executive board members included Co-Chair Nicoletta Tataru (Romania) and Secretary General Alexander Botsis (Greece). The five other board members were Danuta Wasserman (Sweden), editor of the Suicidology Section newsletter, Sylvia Pelaez (Uruguay), co-editor of the suicidology Section newsletter, Sergio De Risio (Italy), Nelson Moreno Ceballos (Dominican Republic), and Sergio Perez Barerro (Cuba): eight members in all.

At the WPA World Congress in Cairo 2005, the general assembly of the Section voted for the re-election of J-P Soubrier as Chairman, and Danuta Wasserman (Sweden) was elected as Co-Chair, Marco Sarchiapone (Italy) as Secretary General, and José Manuel Bertolote (Switzerland and Brazil), Julio Bobes (Spain), Jean Pierre Kahn (France), Alec Roy (USA) and Wolfgang Rutz (Sweden) as board members. In 2008, during the WPA meeting in Prague, Danuta Wasserman was elected Chair of the Section. Alec Roy was then elceted Co-chair of the Section, and Marco Sarchiapone was re-elected Secretary General; Jean-Pierre Soubrier was appointed as the Honorary Member of the Section.

From its inception, the WPA Section on Suicidology had the exciting task of bringing together different scientific personalities conducting research from divergent perspectives on suicidology, with a common interest in suicide prevention, which has been the main focus of efforts from the WPA Section on Suicidology. One of the first activities of the Section was to support dissemination of the publications stemmed from the WHO multisite intervention study on suicidal behaviours (SUPRE-MISS) programme. From this programme, several resource booklets were produced, addressing specific social groups and professionals, which are particularly relevant for the prevention of suicide, including health professionals, educators, social organizers, governments, law-makers, social communicators, law forces, families and communities (WHO 2000a–c, 2006a, b, 2007, 2008a, b).

Since 2002, the Section has participated and given symposia (usually two at each conference or congress) in all major WPA regional and international conferences: Vienna in 2003, Florence in 2004, Cairo in 2005, Athens in 2005, Madrid in 2006, Prague in 2008 and Florence in 2009.

In 2005, at the thirteenth World Congress of WPA, in Cairo, Egypt, a joint symposium with the Section on Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry chaired by Herman van Praag on ‘Religion and Suicide’ was given.

The Section has also sponsored other conferences, with the goal of implementing research in suicidology and suicide prevention, such as the First Latin-American International Meeting for Suicide Prevention on the theme ‘A culture for life in the twenty-first century’ in May 2004 in Montevideo, Uruguay and the First Mental Health International Conference on the theme of ‘Direct and Indirect Self-Destructive Behaviours and Mental Disorders—Transcultural Differences’, in collaboration with Emirates Psychological Association, in June 2007 in Dubai.

During workshops and symposia organized by the Section, nearly all the topics related to self-destructive behaviours and suicide have been discussed, from biology and genetics to psychology, religion and spirituality.

The Section established an award in honour of the late Professor Sergio De Risio, an illustrious Italian psychiatrist with a deep and genuine interest in the field of suicidology, founder of a group of Italian suicidologists active in the WPA Section on Suicidology, who passed away in 2004. The De Risio Award, which is meant to be conferred to the author of the best poster in suicidology presented at a World Congress of Psychiatry, was approved by the WPA Executive Committee in 2006, thus allowing for the support of young researchers in the field of suicidology, to whom Sergio De Risio had devoted his utmost efforts and unforgettable teaching.In 2008, in Prague, the first award was given to Bruno Mendonça Coêlho, a young brazilian suicidologist.

Information about the Section can be found at the website http://www.wpanet.org.