Greetings

The 118th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology

Hiroaki Kawasaki

Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Fukuoka University

I am delighted that the 118th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology will be held over three days from June 16th to June 18th, 2022, in Fukuoka. Fukuoka University Faculty of Medicine will act as the host of our Society’s Annual Meeting for the first time in 38 years, the last time being in 1984 when Dr. Masahisa Nishizono, the first professor of Depart of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Fukuoka University, chaired the 80th Annual Meeting.

The 118th Annual Meeting is planned to host as full a scale meeting as is possible. Since the beginning of 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic has restricted engagements to remote internet meetings and restricted ones, as has and is the case with the 116th and 117th meetings, respectively.

The emergence of COVID-19 has changed all sorts of thing in the world. In addition to the vast changes in the environment that surrounds us, new psychiatric issues have been thrown up day by day, and our perception of them has altered too. I think that these changes can be divided into those deriving from COVID-19 and those with other causes. I could cite many phenomena such as changes in the quality of communication due to online interaction and restrictions on face-to-face encounters, bereavement due to deaths from the infection, anxieties about rises in the suicide rate that had been declining in recent years, changes in psychiatric treatment methods and the diagnosis and treatment structure, increases in the abuse of young people including infants as well as spouses, the elderly and those in care, the mental health of medical staff coping with COVID-19, and the general anxiety enveloping our society. Moreover, the situation is hugely complicated by the already existing major changes witnessed in the rapid advance of physical treatment including drug treatment, the emergence of biological psychiatry, the current era of reconsidering mental illness and psychological intervention, changes in the environment surrounding psychiatric treatment, the issues of the new education and training systems, and more.

The Society is a place for psychiatrists to improve themselves and has contributed to the establishment of identity as psychiatrists. Moreover, from the perspective of young psychiatrists who wish to become specialists, the Society provides excellent opportunities to encounter the latest knowledge. In the year of 2022, it is essential that through the Society we face up to many problems, discuss them, and prepare as we move forward.

The theme for the 118th Annual Meeting is “Psychiatric Perspectives of the Changing World and Minds.” Unlike previous meetings it may be more difficulty to gather at a venue and interact with each other. However, I hope that we can contribute to the further development and deepening of psychiatry from Fukuoka through the online and hybrid sessions, which could be described as the byproducts of COVID-19 pandemic. All the staff members are doing their very best, so I sincerely hope that the Annual Meeting will see the participation of as many people as possible.