Dear Members, Dear Colleagues
I hope all is going well for you and your loved ones in these difficult times.
Women's mental health has been strained since the onset of this pandemic. We try to give you all our support.
The IAWMH has set up a series of webinars since 2020 (epidemic and women on different continents; violence and pandemic in Latin America). The next webinar on Friday 5 March, coordinated by Prof. Chandra will focus on suicide with the support of Ozark Fiber Fling in memory of their friend, "Jill." For more information on their organization and "Jill, please click here. Detailed information on the webinar is listed below. Click here for the webinar flyer.
In the next months, Profs. Van der Gaag and Thibaut will organize monthly webinars on women’s health with different colleagues, which will be free of charge for members.
In this context, Profs. Donna Stewart and Prabha Chandra assisted by the Steering Committee have just updated the World Psychiatric Association Curriculum on Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence Against Women. Please see the link for all versions given on this page: https://www.wpanet.org/education
The direct link for the French translation is:
Looking forward to seeing you soon on our newly renovated website or during our future seminars.
Best regards
Prof Florence Thibaut
IAWMH President
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Webinar - Friday 5 March 2021
Antigone Unraveled – Understanding Female Suicide
A webinar by IAWMH for International Women's Day 2021
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Chairpersons - Welcome
Prof. Prabha S Chandra, President-elect, IAWMH
Is the Gender Paradox in Suicide Universal?
Why We Cannot Ignore Maternal Suicide
Dr. Abigail Easter, United Kingdom
Risk Trajectories of Self-Directed Violence in Women
Dr. Alexis Palfreyman, Sri Lanka
Q&A
In order to meet the global time zones across the day the webinar will be presented at 12:30pm UTC. This corresponds to the following times from which you may determine your own time zone on Friday 5 March 2021:
London, UK - 12:30pm – 2:00pm
Paris, France - 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Bangalore, India – 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Melbourne, Australia - 11:30pm (Sat) – 1:00am
Guayaquil, Ecuador - 7:30am – 9:00am
New York, US - 7:30am – 9:00am
Chicago, US - 6:30am – 8:00am
This webinar is sponsored by Ozark Fiber Fling, education and promotion of the fiber arts group, in memory of their friend “Jill” who succumbed to suicide.
For more information about their organization and “Jill” – click here
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Helen Herrman completes her term as WPA President -
and invites you to the WPA World Congress of Psychiatry
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I completed my term as President of WPA in October 2020 after three years in this position and three years before that as President-elect. Reports of the work during my term that included a focus on women and young people and featured the engagement of women colleagues in our congresses and other activities, are found through the link https://www.wpanet.org/action-plan-2017-2020
I was pleased to lead a program that built gender and geographic diversity in WPA’s leadership and scientific face, worked closely with people with lived experience and their families, and engaged with international organisations and policy-makers including IAWMH, the World Health Organization, World Medical Association, and World Organization of Family Doctors.
I am indebted to colleagues in WPA’s 145 member societies, its other trusted partners, and its committees and working groups, including many colleagues in IAWMH. We were able to deliver a number of successful outcomes, highlights of which are seen through the link.
Thanks to strong networks and the open communication channels we worked hard to create during the three years, WPA was able to respond more readily than ever before to the needs of our membership. We rapidly brought together key stakeholders to form the Advisory Committee on Response to Emergencies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic https://www.wpanet.org/acre This in turn assisted collaborative efforts in aid of member societies in need, the response from our ethics and scientific committees, collating a multi-lingual library of mental health resources, and establishing a new Learning Management System focused initially on the pandemic response. As detailed on the website, WPA regards this as preparing for inevitable future emergencies as well as the continuing need for mental health responses to the pandemic.
It was a privilege to work in this position and a joy to work with many of you. I thank you for your support all though, from election onwards, and including your readiness to collaborate and help others even when working under duress during the pandemic.
Finally, please join the virtual World Congress of Psychiatry March 11-13, 2021 https://wcp-congress.com/ originally planned to take place in Bangkok in October 2020. Many of you are participating and we welcome everybody to join for a rare international congress with parity among women and men presenters!
Helen Herrman
Melbourne, January 2021
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Dutch Alliance Gender and Mental Health |
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Great News: Work in Progress |
Last year we managed to create an alliance for Women’s Mental Health. This Dutch Alliance has embraced the Mission of IAWMH. The alliance includes professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses), the association of mental health facilities and MIND the users (patients and families) association, along with WOMEN INC.
Our first achievement has been to reach an agreement with our ministry of health that has agreed to fund research on Gender Sexe and Mental Health with 3 million euro for this year with the perspective of a prolongation over the next five year. The call will be out shortly. It aims at funding both fundamental research in gender differences and Mental Health and projects aiming at making mental health care safely and well accessible for women and minorities.
Next week on February 3rd the project will be launched in a webinar in which our Queen Maxima will participate.
We are thrilled that more than 750 will participate in this online symposium where the four main aims of our alliance will be addressed: teasing out biological differences to generate better diagnosis, enable secure access to services, address the issue of burn-out, difficulties women encounter in combining the burdens of work and family and finally pursuing our efforts to reduce violence against women and provide adequate help for those suffering from subsequent trauma’s.
Patricia van Wijngaarden-Cremers
board member IAWMH & chair of the Dutch Alliance Gender and Mental Health
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Archives of Women's Mental Health
IAWMH Official Journal
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For the Archives of Women’s Mental Health the new year started with good news:
Our reviewers will be offered some more incentives now:
There will also be a reviewer acknowledgement again this year. It is usually scheduled for the first issue of the year.
We do not provide routinely certificates for reviewers but do provide an email confirmation when we receive requests from reviewers to confirm that they have reviewed for the journal during a certain year.
We will acknowledge the top reviewer of the year and invite her/him to join the journal’s editorial board. He/she would be then eligible for complimentary online access of the journal, in addition to the honor to be on the editorial board. This may be of interest especially for junior researchers as being on a journal’s editorial board would enhance their professional experience.
All editorial board members will get a free online subscription to our journal !
Also we have started now an “editor’s pick” of especially interesting articles on our website -see
It is by no means comprehensive, but you could forward it to colleagues to rise interest in our journal.
Editor-in Chief
Prof. em. Dr. med. Anita Riecher-Rössler
Medical Faculty, University of Basel, Switzerland
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Scholarly Books Published by Members |
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The 4th National Symposium, of Indian Psychiatric Society’s Women and Mental Health Speciality Section and Perinatal Psychiatry Task Force, , co-sponsored by IPS Odisha State branch was held on 13th Dec, 2020 on a virtual platform. The daylong event was inaugurated by Dr P K Dalal, Hon President Indian Psychiatric Society in presence of the Guest of Honour Dr Helen Herrman, Imm. Past President WPA. This year a special award was given to two women psychiatrists in recognition of their resilience in professional and personal life. The scientific sessions included a Key Note address on Recovery Through a Gendered Lens, Panel Discussions on Hidden Figures- Gender and Trauma; Perinatal Loss and Longing; and case conferences by early career psychiatrists. The event ended with a Blitz presentation competition by young and talented post graduate students on the theme ‘The Female brain is Unique’. The daylong event on women's mental health was enthusiastically attended by 730 delegates across India. |
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The III European Meeting on Women’s Mental Health organised by the Catalan Women’s Mental Health group and endorsed by the IAWMH. There were very interesting presentations. Prabha Chandra made one of the lectures and Anita Riecher-Rössler made the closing ceremony. Click here for Meeting Summary Report
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Dr Marta Rondon and Dr Prabha Chandra have been members of The Lancet Psychiatry commission on domestic abuse and its consequences along the life cycle . The paper will soon be published and both IAWMH members will present along with Prof Louise Howard and Prof Sian Oram at the upcoming WPA congress. |
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Dr Marta B. Rondon has been appointed to the Expert Committee on Sexual and Reproductive Health of the Peruvian Ministry of Health.
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The VII International Congress of Medicine and Women´s Mental Health, chaired by Silvia Gaviria, was held in Medellín from March 5th to 7th, 2020. This meeting is celebrated every two years in Medellín and has the support of CES University and endorsement by IAWMH and WPA. About 270 people attended the congress. We have the presence of professionals from Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, the United States and from various places in Colombia. Click here for a Congress Report.
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Unaiza Niaz reports that she has revived the Sections of WMH in the Pakistan Psychiatric Society and the WFMH. Presently, she is the Chair for both Sections, She is conducting, Webinars in the WFMH WMH section every three months.
Her memoirs, ’I lived life,’ was well received and great reviews were published in JPPS in Pakistan, Arab Journal of Psychiatry. Reviews in other International Journals of Psychiatry are in Press. It has been very well reviewed and received. For a copy of a review, click here.
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Looking for news from our members!
As we are preparing IAWMH Newsletters we want to highlight our members'
activities, awards and news. Let us know what's happening that would be of interest to
included in the next newsletter.
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