PRESIDENT‘S MESSAGE

I blame my parents. Like it or not I enjoy helping others, and over time much of life has given me the opportunity to pursue this goal. Going to medical school enabled me to meet another of my pleasures, study, and my career in medicine has, to date enabled me to marry these two. I trained in psychiatry in England, and while training worked for an assertive outreach team who, by and large, supported people with personality pathology from moderate to very severe. During this time two things really struck home: some people have really really difficult early lives and many who don’t struggle to keep a compassionate stance towards them.

I’ve had a focus on working with people with personality disorders since this time academically and clinically. So its natural I should go to ISSPD congresses, join ISSPD and work to support it. It seems far less natural, to me at least, that I now find myself its President for the 2022-24 term. I’m humbled to be following on from researchers who efforts are remarkable, clinicians who have developed and championed services in their regions and to work with those who remained focused on ensuring the next generation of clinicians are mindful of, and know how to help, people with personality disorder.

ISSPD is emerging from a time of change. Regional bodies in Australasia, Europe and North America are strong and growing, our membership structure has changed to one that encompasses all these groups. We are working on further developing our student structures to better support this generation of academics and clinicians. We have made changes to our by-laws to more actively engage with the carer and lived experience sectors of our global community. We are thinking about how to support colleagues who are based in regions where personality disorder work in not currently covered by a regional society. We are also, of course, working on Congress in 2023. Congress remains a cornerstone of our society. It is an event that draws all sectors of the community together to share knowledge, and enjoy one another’s company. We are hoping that, Covid willing, we will meet in Sydney in 2023 and I hope to see you all there.

Kia Kaha

(stay strong)

Giles Newton-Howes