The plenary sessions will address the main themes of the congress.

Each of the presidential symposia will last 60 minutes. In each of them there will be two speakers.

These sessions are reviews of the most important developments in the field covered by the title of the session. They are developed by the WPA Scientific sections.

These sessions are a fruit of collaboration between WPA and other organizations. Each of the Collaborative Inter-organizational Symposia will be co-chaired by representatives from WPA and from the collaborating organization. The sessions, lasting one hour will have up to four speakers from the two organizations. After each presentation the audience will be invited to ask questions and at the end will be another period for any general comments or questions.

During the Congress there will be several Special lectures addressing issues of particular importance by well known speakers.

In each of the congresses that the WPA holds, there are three sessions that address three topics of particular relevance for world psychiatry and for work. The sessions typically have two speakers and two discussants.

These are sessions which use different innovative methods to address a theme. They are developed in collaboration with early career psychiatrists. The sessions last one hour and on this occasion include:

Difficult case discussions – During these sessions early career psychiatrists, supported by a senior expert will present case histories of people with mental disorders whose diagnosis and management presented a number of problems. The speakers will describe the cases highlighting the issues and invite the audience to engage in a discussion and in the search for solutions to the problems which they faced.

CRPD Case studies – The Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been formally adopted by the United nations and presents an obligation for the UN members states. Its application sometimes presents practical  problems. The session will describe several cases in which this has happened and invite a panel of experts including persons with lived experience and carers to discuss what should be done.

The WPA three-minute competition – This competition will be an interactive session with a series of short presentations aiming to improve presentation skills of early career psychiatrists (ECP) and facilitate an exchange among them. The format of the competition aims to encourage early career psychiatrists to effectively explain their topic in 3 minutes in a clear and succinct way, improving the manner of their presentation and trying to capture the audience’s attention. The audience will select the most attractive presentation by voting and the winner will receive a prize.

The WPA book presentation sessions – Authors will a  series of  books related to the WPA program and published in the past year.

These sessions represent a particularly important part of the congress. Each of the panel sessions will address a topic of importance selected by The Scientific Committee of the congress. In addition to chairpersons each of the panel will bring together 6 participants who will discuss the issues related to the theme of the panel. There will be no formal presentations during the panel.

The Scientific Committee may invite experts to address a topic of importance “on the fringe” of the usual activities of the WPA in symposia.  These symposia will also have a chairperson and two to three speakers and possibly a discussant. The sessions will last 60 minutes.

These are symposia that were submitted to the Scientific Committee and accepted into the program. There will be one or two co-chairs and two to  three speakers for each symposium. There should be no more than two persons from the same country in each symposium.

These sessions will be composed of 8 oral presentations selected by the Scientific Committee from those submitted through abstract submission. The presentations will be grouped according to the list of topics produced for the Congress. Each speaker will have 10 minutes for the presentation (8 minute talk and 2 minutes for questions and answers).

E-posters will be displayed in the E-poster Gallery throughout the congress.