Working for Indian Association for Social Psychiatry: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

As psychiatry made a steady progress in India, organizations such as the Indian Psychiatric Society and Indian Association for Social Psychiatry (IASP) also grew in strength. These organizations played a crucial role in facilitating research and promoting academic interest in the field of mental health in India. It was felt that there is a great need to have a look into the sociocultural factors and their role in the phenomenology, course, and outcome in mental health problems, especially in the Indian context, with its rich and diverse sociocultural milieu. It was also well acknowledged that the treatment of mental disorders involved a multidisciplinary approach and nonpharmacological management was at least as important as medications. These factors fostered the birth of IASP (in January 1984), which was a distinct organization with different mental health professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses) that sought to focus on social issues in psychiatry. Over a period IASP was able to create a niche for itself not only in India but globally as well; hosting of World Congress of Social Psychiatry, the prestigious academic event of World Association of Social Psychiatry in 2016 further strengthened IASP's position in the international forum. Nevertheless, IASP did have to struggle from time to time and circumvent around challenging issues. This narrative gives a bird's eye view (as seen by BS Chavan, former Secretary General of IASP) of how IASP evolved over time and how it traversed hurdles to become what it is today.