PRESSETEXT // Berlin/Munich (pts018/17 April 2025/11:30) An unholy alliance between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry? KVPM calls for the status of medical ‘continuing professional development’ to be revoked – the Berlin Medical Association remains silent.
Continued education – Berlin Medical Association remains silent
€1.2 million in sponsorship – the human rights organisation Commission for Violations of Human Rights by Psychiatry in Germany e.V. (KVPM) criticises the DGPPN congress as a marketing event and calls for consequences.
The annual congress of the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN) took place in Berlin from 27 to 30 November 2024 – with around 9,000 participants and 600 events. The congress was recognised as medical continuing education by the Berlin Medical Association. However, according to the KVPM, the massive sponsorship – 1.2 million euros alone, particularly from pharmaceutical companies – raises fundamental questions about the independence of psychiatric continuing professional development.
‘The independence of medical opinion-forming is no longer guaranteed if psychiatry congresses are financed by industry and yet still recognised as medical continuing professional development,’ says Bernd Trepping, Chair of KVPM Deutschland e.V.
In the run-up to the DGPPN congress, the KVPM had submitted a well-founded written complaint to the Berlin Medical Association, demanding that the congress be stripped of its continuing education status – citing significant conflicts of interest as well as manufacturers of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) devices who were prominently listed as sponsors. Four months after the congress ended, there has still been no response to this submission.
Support from professional circles too
The KVPM’s criticism is not shared only by human rights activists. A psychiatrist and board member of a medical ethics association stated in writing that he considered the demand to be “absolutely correct and worthy of support”, particularly with regard to greater transparency in the funding of psychiatric congresses.
Travelling exhibition “Psychiatry: Death Instead of Help” ahead of the congress
Coinciding with the DGPPN congress, the KVPM protested on the outdoor grounds, where it displayed the international exhibition “Psychiatry: Death Instead of Help” by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). Fourteen display panels document the chronology of psychiatric abuses from the early days to the present.
Over three days, more than 500 visitors flocked to the exhibition, including numerous psychiatrists, nursing staff and psychologists. To promote the event, around 3,000 A1-sized posters were displayed across Berlin, generating widespread attention.
A particular response was generated by a speaker at the DGPPN Congress who, in her specialist presentation, expressly urged participants to visit the exhibition in order to gain a more complete picture of human rights violations in psychiatry. Several visitors responded to her call immediately.
Numerous psychiatrists spoke highly of the exhibition to the KVPM team – many expressly emphasised that this exhibition did not belong outside the congress, but within it. Dr Fritz Reimers, a long-standing board member of the DGPPN and former clinic director, also visited the exhibition in detail.
He stated that the exhibition was “exaggerated, but very valuable” – and supported the KVPM’s demand that the role of psychiatry under National Socialism must be thoroughly addressed.
International attention is growing
The exhibition “Psychiatry: Death Instead of Help” has already been shown in 25 German cities and has attracted over 130,000 visitors. Further stops in Germany, Europe and internationally are also planned for 2025.
Global guidelines: Stop coercion
The KVPM criticises the Berlin Medical Association’s inaction to date as a serious dereliction of duty. “Particularly in light of the new WHO and UN guidelines against psychiatric coercive measures, it is irresponsible not to question existing dependencies on industry interests,” says Trepping. The Medical Association will be asked once again to comment – and the issue will also be pursued at an international level.
Call for a legal ban on electroshock therapy
On Friday, 29 November 2024, human rights activists from across Germany demonstrated together with the KVPM in Berlin against the use of electroshock therapy (ECT). The activists are calling for a legal ban on this method, as well as an end to psychiatric coercion, physical restraints and the forced administration of psychotropic drugs, some of which have serious side effects.
The KVPM cites the new guidelines issued by the WHO and the United Nations on 9 October 2023, which declare coercive practices in psychiatry to be a thing of the past. The WHO and the UN are calling on all governments worldwide to ban coercive measures – as these violate the “right to protection from torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”
